Transcript

I’m Ada Limón and this is…my last episode of The Slowdown.

To be honest, I’m emotional right now. And why shouldn’t I be? I’m thinking of how much The Slowdown has meant to me over the last year and change. Each time I came across a poem I wanted to share, each time I came to the page to write an episode, came to the mic to record an episode, and shared it on social media for listeners and readers, it felt like doing something worthwhile, something good, something that mattered.

Even in my busiest times, making episodes for The Slowdown actually did what they set out to do…they slowed me down. I never rushed through an episode even when I was on deadline or mailed one in because I was on the road. Instead, I’d email with my producer Myka (who I’ve grown terribly attached to) and say something like “I worked on these in the car, and I love these poems!” Or, “I worked on these on the plane and it helped me get through nine hours of travel.” And I meant it. It turns out poetry does, in fact, do the thing I want it to do…it helps me return to the world, to experience it, to pay attention.

While The Slowdown will be in good hands with the new host soon, I wanted to take a moment…to thank you. To thank everyone who has listened to the show, shared it, read it online, donated to the show, or mentioned it to me when we’ve met in person. I also truly want to thank everyone who works behind the scenes to make this show everything it is. From tirelessly working on permissions, to editing scripts, to editing out every second my stomach growls.

People love to make big pronouncements about poetry saving us. And I want to believe that, but for now, what I can say is…poetry can make us feel. And right now, maybe that’s enough. It doesn’t have to bring us hope or joy, it just has to remind us that we feel. That we are alive, and here, and feeling the world. Today’s poem is one by me. Thank you for listening.

The End of Poetry
by Ada Limón

Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower 
and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot, 
enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy 
and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis 
of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god 
not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,
enough of the will to go on and not go on or how 
a certain light does a certain thing, enough 
of the kneeling and the rising and the looking
inward and the looking up, enough of the gun,
the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost
letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and 
the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough 
of the mother and the child and the father and the child 
and enough of the pointing to the world, weary 
and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border, 
enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough 
I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate, 
enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high 
water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease, 
I am asking you to touch me. 

"The End of Poetry" by Ada Limón, from THE HURTING KIND copyright © 2022 Ada Limón. Used by permission of Milkweed Editions.