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The Library of Congress, American Public Media and the Poetry Foundation are collaborating to offer a daily poetry podcast starting November 26, with national broadcast on public radio stations available January 2019. The podcast will feature U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. Smith will host a weekday podcast and radio feature titled The Slowdown. The five-minute program encourages listeners to make a daily space for poetry in an increasingly busy and chaotic world.
“Poetry isn’t an escape or even a luxury,” Smith said. “I’d argue it’s a necessity, a means of living more deeply with reality.”
The celebrated poet will read works by writers from around the country and the world and explore how poetry helps us better understand life, history, art, science and more.
The show will debut on podcast platforms in November; it will be made available to public radio stations nationwide early next year.
“I’m excited to continue the work I’ve done as poet laureate in celebrating poems and the conversations they foster. And thanks to technology’s ability to collapse the distance
between people – to give you the feeling that there is one person out there speaking directly and only to you – geography is no longer a barrier to participation,” Smith said. “I think this is a perfect medium for talking about the very real and natural ways that poems speak to the daily experience of being alive.”