The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1366: "Nostalgia" by Matthew Minicucci

Host: Maggie Smith
Date: October 3, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Maggie Smith delves into the concept of nostalgia, both as a historical ailment and a contemporary experience shaped by memory and technology. Through personal anecdotes and reflection, she builds a bridge to Matthew Minicucci's evocative poem "Nostalgia," which explores the heartache and longing that often accompany distant memories. The episode prompts listeners to reflect on their own relationship with the past and the role of poetry in fostering compassionate self-awareness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The History of Nostalgia as Illness

• [00:13] Maggie introduces nostalgia as once being recognized as a medical condition in the 17th century by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer.
  • “Hundreds of years ago, nostalgia was a diagnosable medical condition. Johannes Hofer, a 17th century Swiss physician, named the condition, which he identified in homesick soldiers…”
  • She explains the etymology: “the gnost in nostalgia means homecoming the alga means pain.”
  • Symptoms included “melancholy, malnutrition, sleepiness, brain fever, and hallucinations.”
  • Hofer saw nostalgia as “the pain of not being able to go home,” expanding the idea of “home” to also include a place, time, person, or former self.

Personal Reflections on Nostalgia in the Digital Age

• Maggie shares how modern technology brings the past—sometimes unbidden—to our daily attention.
  • “Thanks to technology, I have nostalgia at my fingertips at any moment of any day. Shutterfly wants to show me what my life looked like 11 years ago today. Facebook wants to show me my memories over the years. My photo library on my phone offers up highlights and algorithmically selected moments from the past.” [~01:55]
  • “If I wanted to forget about a time, a place, or a person, my devices won't let me.”
  • She invokes vivid family memories—her children’s milestones, their “first day of school,” and small, tender moments captured in photos.

The Role of Poets and Poetry in Nostalgia

• Maggie observes, with gentle humor, the writer’s tendency to experience nostalgia even in real-time:
  • “I joke that I can be nostalgic about a moment while it's happening. That might be the writer in me. Part of me is in the moment, and part of me is already thinking about it from a distance and seeking the language to write about it.” [~01:25]
• She positions poetry as a medium that can help “capture the pain of distance, of longing, of wanting to be somewhere or with someone when you can't.” [~02:45]

Featured Poem: “Nostalgia” by Matthew Minicucci

[02:58]

Maggie reads Matthew Minicucci’s evocative poem, which intimately explores the anguish of lost connection and memory. The poem weaves together images of the sea, dreams, garments, and the elusive quality of memory itself.

Notable excerpts:

• “The worst part of it is that I've forgotten your face…”
• “Love is a logogram less than fewer still a word made nothing more than cotter mark on starboard hard port. I left all those years ago.”
• “Sometimes I dream of my own Sorry our own great rooted bed shaped from something still alive.”
• “And suddenly you're the moon again, lost in reflection sea. I follow the light to nowhere…”
• “It's the worst part of forgetting all this. Remembering.”

The poem’s language—at once nautical, mythic, and personal—echoes the episode’s themes: the ache of remembrance, the struggle to access faded details, and the tangle of loss and longing that nostalgia brings.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• [00:55] Maggie on the impact of technology:
  “My point is, if I wanted to forget about a time, a place, or a person, my devices won't let me.”

• [01:25] On the writer’s experience of nostalgia:
  “I joke that I can be nostalgic about a moment while it's happening.”

• [02:50] Prefacing the poem:
  “Today's poem beautifully captures the pain of distance, of longing, of wanting to be somewhere or with someone when you can't.”

• [03:40] From Minicucci’s poem:
  “Love is a logogram less than fewer still a word made nothing more than cotter mark on starboard hard port. I left all those years ago.”

• [04:33] The close of the poem’s longing:
  “It's true. It's the worst part of forgetting all this. Remembering.”

Episode Structure & Flow

• 00:13 – 02:45: Maggie Smith’s reflection on nostalgia’s history, her personal experiences with memory and technology, and how poetry helps us process longing.
• 02:58 – 04:45: Reading of “Nostalgia” by Matthew Minicucci.
• 04:45 – end: Brief show credits and invitation to engage with The Slowdown community.

Takeaways

This meditative episode encourages listeners to acknowledge nostalgia’s bittersweet duality: pain and longing entwined with gratitude for memory. Through Smith’s warm, personal reflections and Minicucci’s poignant poem, “Nostalgia,” the episode offers solace and companionship for anyone navigating the push-and-pull of remembering—and forgetting—what once was.