1336: I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson

Summary

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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1336: I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: August 22, 2025
Duration (excluding ads/credits): ~6 min

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Brief Overview

In this episode, host Maggie Smith invites listeners to reconsider everyday wonders often overlooked, introducing Keith S. Wilson’s poem “I Find Myself Defending Pigeons.” Through reflection and reading, Smith encourages listeners to notice, appreciate, and empathize with even the most common city creature—the pigeon. The episode champions poetry’s power to expand perspective and connect us to the beauty and complexity of overlooked lives in our midst.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Value in Overlooked Things ― Observing the Pigeon

• Maggie Smith opens (00:28) by highlighting why she loves poetry:
  • "One thing I love about poems is how they give us the opportunity to take our time, to dial in, to look and listen closely. Not everything screams to be noticed. Some things barely whisper, or they might just squawk or coo now and then."
• She frames pigeons as creatures emblematic of the things many people ignore, inviting the audience to see wonder in the mundane.

Reading of “I Find Myself Defending Pigeons” by Keith S. Wilson

• Smith reads the poem in its entirety (~00:46–06:07), which functions as both celebration and defense of urban pigeons.
• The poem explores:
  • Their resilience (“underestimation never stopped a pigeon from unlatching itself or being old”)
  • Their oddness and omnipresence (“bridges that are half sigh and half pigeon”)
  • Their history and relationship with humans (“I love the pigeons’ place in history, their obsession with living in the letters of our signs”)
  • The beauty in their ordinary existence and their “bad reputation,” juxtaposed with angelic imagery.

Notable lines & images from the poem:

• “Rats adorned with angel wings and the children down the street are free to chase their drag.” (05:02)
• “I want still life with pigeons, since not a one has ever been portrayed with a soul.” (04:38)
• “You can never know a language until you quiet your own.” (03:28)
• “Let the pigeon speak. Ask the closest pigeon for his number, for her middle name.” (05:23)

Reflections on Attention and Compassion

• By giving poetic attention to pigeons, Wilson—and Smith in her curation—models the practice of noticing, of caring, and of pushing past surface-level judgments.
• The poem and Smith’s setup suggest that reflecting on the mundane attunes us to beauty and complexity everywhere, even in “rats with angel wings.”

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Maggie Smith (00:28):
  "Not everything screams to be noticed. Some things barely whisper, or they might just squawk or coo now and then. Today's poem is a celebration of creatures we tend to overlook or even disdain. It invites us to reconsider our perspective."

• Keith S. Wilson (read by Maggie Smith, 03:28):
  "You can never know a language until you quiet your own."

• Keith S. Wilson (read by Maggie Smith, 04:38):
  "I want oils and watercolors and inks. I want still life with pigeons, since not a one has ever been portrayed with a soul."

• Keith S. Wilson (read by Maggie Smith, 05:02):
  "They're rats adorned with angel wings and the children down the street are free to chase their drag."

• Keith S. Wilson (read by Maggie Smith, 05:23):
  "Let the pigeon speak. Ask the closest pigeon for his number, for her middle name."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:28–00:46 | Host's Reflection: Poetry as a tool for attention; setting up today's poem
• 00:46–06:07 | Poem Reading: “I Find Myself Defending Pigeons” by Keith S. Wilson
  • 03:28 | Poignant Insight: "You can never know a language until you quiet your own."
  • 04:38 | On Artistic Representation: "I want still life with pigeons, since not a one has ever been portrayed with a soul."
  • 05:02–05:23 | On Reputation and Difference: "Rats adorned with angel wings..." & "Let the pigeon speak...."

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Tone and Language

• The language throughout is contemplative, open-hearted, imaginative—a blend of Smith’s reflective introduction and the poem’s lyrical, empathetic voice.
• Both Smith and Wilson center on compassion, imagination, and the act of seeing—inviting the listener to attune to their world in new ways.

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Summary

This episode of The Slowdown uses Keith S. Wilson’s “I Find Myself Defending Pigeons” as a lens for exploring empathy and the unnoticed beauty in daily life. Through Smith’s thoughtful introduction and Wilson’s layered poem, listeners are prompted to look again at what they might overlook or disparage, and to practice the poetic attention that makes compassion possible.

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Transcript

[Customer]

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[McDonald's Employee]

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[Customer]

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[McDonald's Employee]

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[Customer]

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[Maggie Smith]

Take it, I guess.

[McDonald's Employee]

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[Maggie Smith]

Ba da ba ba ba Foreign I'm Maggie Smith, and this is the Slowdown. One thing I love about poems is how they give us the opportunity to take our time, to dial in, to look and listen closely. Not everything screams to be noticed. Some things barely whisper, or they might just squawk or coo now and then. Today's poem is a celebration of creatures we tend to overlook or even disdain. It invites us to reconsider our perspective. I find myself Defending Pigeons by Keith S. Wilson. I love how you never find their bodies, how they never rest their eyes. I love how their breasts are comforters unfolding by their breath. I love that pigeons live in the city, that underestimation never stopped a pigeon from unlatching itself or being old. I want them all unspooling in the air and bridges that are half sigh and half pigeon. I want to harbor their coo and utilize it for energy. I want to learn to use them the way they want to be used. I want to pigeon tale into a quiet night to let their oddness sit in our hands. You can never know a language until you quiet your own. I want people to write about them. They're leaving ships for land or standing on their own on a marble statue in the shimmer of a field. I want to talk about the term rock dove, argue over whether or not it's imperialist. I want the media to implicate us in the pigeon problem for a couple to sit with their asparagus and kids and realize none of this is far from them, whatever we think. I want oils and watercolors and inks. I want still life with pigeons, since not a one has ever been portrayed with a soul. A flight of them around old bread and how they're all the same, how all the world is here with them in hate since they are rats adorned with angel wings and the children down the street are free to chase their drag. They want to see a pigeon's rouge entirely let the pigeon have her pigment. Consider the pigeon's brown and green and everything, the brandishing of his nakedness to the sun as if nothing is absolute. I love the pigeon's shoulders, tongues and wedding nights. I love the pigeons place in history, their obsession with living in the letters of our signs. I love their minds or what I've come to believe is their theology. Who knows? Let the pigeon speak. Ask the closest pigeon for his number, for her middle name. If they are ready to die, if the sky gets crowded enough to consider war, if their stores are closed on Sundays. I want to be ready for them to be just like us, but more ready for them to be completely different. I don't want to waste any time tracing a pigeon's God to Abraham. I want to get started. Some of us feed pigeons. I love sometimes our care. I love, I think the park bench. I love apples but I do not love pears. The weather I love the pigeons, the revolution of wheel to sky. I love the newspaper graying in a different air. The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter and find us on Instagram at slowdownshow and blueskylowdownshow.org the slowdown is written by me, Maggie Smith. Our lead producer is Micah Kielbon and our associate producer is Maria Wurtel. Engineering by Derek Ramirez. Our digital producer is James Napoli. Additional production help by Susanna Sharpless, Cece Lucas and Lauren Humpert. Our editor is Joanne Griffith. Our music is composed by Kyle Andrews. Our executives in charge are Chandra Kavati and Mark Crowley.

[Deborah Treisman]

Hi, I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of the New Yorker and host of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. On the podcast I ask a great contemporary writer to select a favorite story from the magazine's almost hundred year archive to read and discuss. Together we delve into the story, exploring its themes, its style, and what makes fiction work. You can listen to authors like Ottessa Moshfegh talk about why we write story.

[Maggie Smith]

Or attaching a story or creating a story. Is this inclination that we all have to stop spinning and you can hear.

[Deborah Treisman]

Writers like George Saunders discuss the nature.

[Customer]

Of storytelling on the first read. You accept these things as descriptions and they make you see the scene, but every line is a chance to inflect the reader's mind.

[Deborah Treisman]

You'll discover new favorite authors and read old favorites in new ways. Episodes of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast are released on the 1st of every month. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.