← The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
1284: When You Rise from the Dead I Drive You to the After Party by Melissa Studdard
00:05:42
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What's up? It's major. Starting this Monday, February 3rd, our next two weeks of episodes will be hosted by the poet and writer Maggie Smith. We hope you enjoy. I'll return to your feeds on Monday, February 17th.
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I'm Major Jackson and this is the Slowdown.
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I think my group chats are the best Group chats We hit each other up every day, give verbal daps, check in on family, share progress, videos of workouts. We pass on new drafts of poems with no pressure to give feedback. But of course we do. Or we simply say good morning. When birthdays roll around, we make sure each feels the love on our phones. We are royalty. I'm in several group chats, one a decade old. I prize them all health tips are exchanged. Get togethers are organized. Book parties are planned. When I contemplate going silent of letting go of this piece of technology in my hand, I think of missing the shared memes that have us cracking up on our phones. We set off laugh bombs. Of course, our flurries of text do not substitute for IRL moments in the past. Yes, I railed against the world being too much with us. However, it boggles the mind, this level of rapid support and ongoing community of family and friends on our phones. We are each other's emt. Today's poem possesses that quality of floating with our crew in the spaces between, that magic of turning up each other's light. It's a poem featured in Invisible Strings, the anthology that celebrates Taylor Swift's lyrics. Hey Swifties, can you tell which song inspired the author's poem? When you rise from the dead, I drive you to the after party By Melissa Stoddard for my favorite Swiftie, Carolyn if someone tossed us the sun, we'd catch it in our halos without getting burned. We're cleaning up this constellation of fractured anthems and interstellar dust, threading the debris we collect into daisy garlands for stars and starfish and starlings. People say we're good, but it's more like we're fabulous. Like crushed platinum and amethyst planet shaped paperweights resting on palms scribbled by moth wings, we slide from one side of infinity to the other without messing up our hair. That's how lovely we are. Like two comets combing our own tails, we toss bears to beehives without harming them, catch falling snow without melting it. We're chilled like a bloom of moon jellyfish bluing the wash and drift of warm orbital waters. See this chill wave ambiance we're weaving through the zodiac. We throw a stitch and it loops back around the celestial drama of this Earth sky diorama. When we have bad days, we crack them open to discover hope winking at us in the center. We float over mud puddles while people who wronged us step into them. We can even catch meteors in our teeth without breaking their streaks. That's how good we've been. That's why we're on the top stair of this universe, blowing kisses to asteroids and astronauts. At least that's what horoscopes predict. The media will say at the party I'm throwing in your honor. They'll say that we know when to blink and when to wink, when to take the stage and when to step aside and let the cosmos do its work. So we hang out in the audience, sharing our blessings. You say may you always find the songs you need to explain your own emotions. I say may you go shopping for cleaning supplies but come home with poems.
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The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. This project is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts on the web@arts.gov.
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To get a poem.
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