1365: Noise Cancelling by Devon Walker-Figueroa

Summary

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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1365: "Noise Cancelling" by Devon Walker-Figueroa
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: October 2, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Slowdown, host Maggie Smith invites listeners to immerse themselves in poetry as a means of mindful reflection. She features Devon Walker-Figueroa’s poem "Noise Cancelling," a piece that navigates themes of memory, grief, presence, and the search for quiet within life’s persistent noise. Through subtle commentary and attentive reading, Maggie encourages listeners to lose themselves in the poem, highlighting poetry’s power to illuminate the contours of our inner and outer worlds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Maggie Smith’s Introduction to the Poem

• Theme of Getting Lost:
  Maggie opens by embracing the idea of “getting a little bit lost” as a positive, even necessary, part of engaging with poetry. She urges listeners to surrender to the poem’s flow:

  “I love getting a little bit lost. Today’s poem is one you’re going to lose yourself in for these few minutes, and I’m eager for you to do that, so I’m going to get right to it.”
  — Maggie Smith, 01:41

• Invitation to Presence:
  She frames poetry as an antidote to the clamor of daily life, an act of attention and reflection that helps us “lean into wonder, and joy, and truth, and to find hope — to keep hoping.” (Intro context)

Poem Reading: "Noise Cancelling"

Maggie reads the poem in its entirety, allowing its dense, winding imagery and layered emotional resonances to unfold.

Selected Themes & Moments in the Poem

• Sense of Self and Time’s Erosion:

  “To think I’ve gone to all this trouble just to lose my looks and mind, too much, that I am real only to myself. No matter even heaven goes to hell in time, in time.”
  — Devon Walker-Figueroa, 02:04

  The speaker reflects on the impermanence of identity and beauty, resigned to the passage of time.

• The Futility and Possibility in Speech:

  “I am still here, speaking my mind, unminding my mouth, preaching to a mountain whose only sound is my moan...”
  — 02:27

  Words become sound alone in the enormity of nature and history, yet the poem insists on their expression.

• Inheriting Grief and Song:

  “I unwind myself at my mother’s feet, touch a match to the hem of her emerald am and make it an ember as another sound learns what sleep really is. She too adored ideas of continuance. Cultivated songs that helped her breathe. But now she is winded, now wounded, now new and my math is bad, my science reduced to a sigh.”
  — 03:07–03:46

  The poem knits together generational memory, maternal love, and the limits of language and reason in the face of loss.

• Child’s Innocent Challenge:

  “A child says, how dare you disturb the universe? How right you are, I say.”
  — 03:46–03:55

  Here, the poem pivots on a moment of direct address, highlighting awe and self-doubt.

• Exhaustion and Aging:

  “You act like it’s my fault youth went elsewhere. I’m tired of watching my mouth, my head feels like an egg no one warms with their waiting... Even to sleep is humiliating, etc. But when the grief is gone, what will miss me?”
  — 04:44–04:53

  The speaker contemplates weary detachment, questioning self-worth and presence.

• The Library as Sanctuary:

  “I’m sitting on the floor in the children’s section of a library. July set on fire and the blaze is not near so guttural as anyone guessed.”
  — 05:30–05:34

  This image evokes both refuge and a world in subtle turmoil, contrasting interior retreat with external chaos.

• Longing, Myth, and Forgiveness:

  “All I ask is you warm your hands over the folktales adorning the night... And please forgive the fortune tellers their crumbling bones, for they are thrown as no voice and no inside us is our beating.”
  — 05:34–07:24

  The poem ends with a request for forgiveness and a recognition of what endures—faith, myth, and the quiet continuity of life.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Speaking Amid Collapse:

  “All this singing about what’s collapsing has grown older than I’ll ever be.”
  — 03:55

• On the World’s Indifference and Intimacy:

  “Yes, the world minds me or I mind the world, the few places in it I’ve touched, its winds that plague me as harp music might, and so I harp.”
  — 04:03

• On Letting Go and Forgiveness:

  “Which is to say, please forgive the tunes I can no longer carry into the future. And please forgive the fortune tellers their crumbling bones, for they are thrown as no voice and no inside us is our beating.”
  — 07:02–07:24

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Important Timestamps

• 01:41 — Maggie introduces her perspective on “getting lost” in poetry, setting the reflective tone.
• 01:58 — Introduction of the poem "Noise Cancelling" and its author.
• 02:04 – 07:24 — Full reading of "Noise Cancelling," featuring emotionally charged pauses and layered insights.
• 03:46 — Memorable interaction with a child: “How dare you disturb the universe?”
• 05:30 — Imagery of sitting in a library during tumultuous July.
• 07:02 — The poem’s closing note on forgiveness and the invisible beating within.

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Final Thoughts

This episode beautifully exemplifies The Slowdown’s mission to use poetry as a lens for understanding ourselves and our world. Maggie Smith’s measured delivery and Walker-Figueroa’s poignant, imagistic verses work in tandem to create a space for listeners to reflect on loss, continuity, and the sometimes “noise-canceling” grace of art.

“All I ask is you warm your hands over the folktales adorning the night…”
— Devon Walker-Figueroa, 05:34

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Transcript

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[Maggie Smith]

I'm Maggie.

Smith and this is the slowdown.

I.

Love getting a little bit lost. Today's poem is one you're going to.

[Narrator/Poetry Reader]

Lose yourself in for these few minutes, and I'm eager for you to do.

[Maggie Smith]

That, so I'm going to get right to it.

[Narrator/Poetry Reader]

Noise Canceling By Devin Walker Figueroa to.

[Maggie Smith]

Think I've gone to all this trouble just to lose my looks and mind.

Too much, that I am real only to myself. No matter even heaven goes to hell in time, in time.

[Narrator/Poetry Reader]

Yet in the revision of the future.

[Maggie Smith]

I am still here, speaking my mond, unminding my mouth, preaching to a mountain whose only sound is my moan gliding down it, where water once carried on and on, amusing wasted gods in ways we humans never could Amass delight, weigh.

Your words until they're free.

Babble, bubble, treble, try when the noise is finally gone, what will miss it?

I unwind myself at my mother's feet, touch a Match to the hem of her emerald am and make it an ember as another sound learns what sleep really is. She too adored ideas of continuance Cultivated songs that helped her breathe.

But now she is winded, now wounded, now new and my math is bad, my science reduced to a sigh.

A child says, how dare you disturb the universe?

How right you are, I say.

All this singing about what's collapsing has grown older than I'll ever be. No matter, no muttering over spilled blood and milk and tea Though I dream of orchards no one can discard Though I stare toward stars Starved of distances to defy. Yes, the world minds me Or I mind the world the few places in it I've touched, its winds that plague me as harp music might and so I harp. You act like it's my fault youth went elsewhere.

I'm tired of watching my mouth, my.

Head feels like an egg no one warms with their waiting Even to sleep is humiliating, etc. But when the grief is gone, what will miss me? No matter, Everyone dares a door to close on splendor, I am told as I extol the sun for beating me at my own name, for numbing this plenum that casts its small adorations on times out of mind, My mind, my say I'm sitting on the floor in.

[Narrator/Poetry Reader]

The children's section of a library July.

[Maggie Smith]

Set on fire and the blaze is not near so guttural as anyone guessed. All I ask is you warm your hands over the folktales adorning the night, the clockmaker and his stolen eyes rising from the page or all I ask is that you scatter me where Babylon once was, For I mind my mythic data from tangled tongues and trees and deities. No matter, no master watches this dream verse itself in gravity, no mystery eavesdrops here, Though a stream converses so fluently with the stones it smooths, I can hear it, every word, and it's vanishing. And speaking of banishment, should I leave my belongings to the desert? Should we say so long and mean so very long? As for the song my mother sung to herself, may you never hear the end of it. Which is to say, please forgive the tunes I can no longer carry into the future. And please forgive the fortune tellers their crumbling bones, for they are thrown as no voice and no inside us is our beating.

[Narrator/Poetry Reader]

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 @downdownshow and [e-mail] hi, it's Maggie. The Slowdown is the only poetry podcast in public media. That means your support is vital to keep us going. No matter how much you give, your contribution makes a real difference. Head to slowdownshow.org donate today to power. More Poems into the Future.