Podcast Summary: The Slowdown - Episode 1367

Poem: “Abundance” by Rick Barot
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: October 6, 2025
Podcast: American Public Media, in partnership with the Poetry Foundation

Overview: Embracing Shared Poetry and Abundance

In this meditative episode, host Maggie Smith explores the joys and significance of sharing poetry aloud with others, rather than experiencing it in solitude. Using Rick Barot’s poem “Abundance,” Smith reflects on memory, patience, connection, and the myriad forms abundance can take in ordinary life—reminding listeners of poetry’s unique ability to expand attention, foster wonder, and cultivate hope.

Key Discussion Points & Poem Highlights

The Pleasures of Sharing Poetry

• Shared Experience: Smith sets the tone by celebrating “the pleasure of sharing our favorite poems with others rather than reading them alone.” (00:22)
• Poetry as Connection: The episode underscores that reading poems aloud together creates a unique intimacy, drawing parallels between shared lines and shared moments in life.

The Poem as Dialogue With Memory and Wonder

• First Meal in America: Barot’s memory of arriving in the US—symbolized by a “bucket of chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken”—serves as a metaphor for unexpected abundance and newness (00:50).
• Abundance Framed Through Tasks: The comparison of memory to “sorting rice by color” in school evokes the work of remembering as a patient, attentive process (01:18).

Patience, Longing, and the Work of Love

• Longing and Wonder:
  • Barot reflects: “So many of the things I love don’t love me back, a claim that, to borrow an aching line from Miwosh, I make not out of sorrow but in wonder...” (02:10)
• Patience in Daily Life: From hunger to love, the poem ties patience to gratitude, noticing, and persistence in the face of uncertainty.

Shared Poetry Reading and Mutual Presence

• Memorable Scene: Two friends lying “on the summertime grass of the park,” swapping life stories—about family, childhood, work—while reading poetry aloud (02:40).
  • Barot contrasts two memorable readings:
    • Larkin’s famous line: “that poem about how parents fuck you up, whisperingly amazed...” (03:10)
    • Dickinson’s poem about how things fall apart in an exact organized decay” (03:20)
• Best Way to Read:
  • “I had the thought that it was best to always read poems this way, like the trains in Europe where you have to sit facing each other.” (03:30)

The Power of Intimate Spaces—Literal and Metaphorical

• Space & Intimacy: Barot draws analogies between the spaces in poetry and private connection:
  • “The space between the lines in a poem was like the space between two people facing each other on a bed, the space of breath in the park.” (03:35)
• Closet as Sanctuary: The word “closet” is reclaimed, evoking community and welcome—a reversal of shame:
  • “Far back in its etymology, the closet, meant a space of intimate privacy where you might welcome others, not a place of shame you’re supposed to leave behind.” (04:30)

The Overflowing Details of Living

• Curious Facts as Abundance: The poem catalogues an array of details—upholstery needles, supergiant stars, daily observations—each an opportunity for awe (04:10).
• Images of America & Humanity: The poem closes with a sweep of scenes brimming with subtle richness: orchards, libraries, airports, church basements, festivals, small gestures and large communities—“the abundance of America” (05:05).

Facing Abundant Futures

• Ending Insight:
  • “Then, like all of us walking into the day, into the one thing there’s plenty of: the future.” (06:40)
• Smith and Barot together propose hope as a shared, daily act rooted in attention.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Shared Poetry:
  “I had the thought that it was best to always read poems this way, like the trains in Europe where you have to sit facing each other.” — Rick Barot (03:30)
• On Wonder, Not Sorrow:
  “A claim that, to borrow an aching line from Miwosh, I make not out of sorrow but in wonder...” — Rick Barot (02:10)
• On the Closet:
  “Far back in its etymology, the closet...meant a space of intimate privacy where you might welcome others, not a place of shame you’re supposed to leave behind.” — Rick Barot (04:30)
• On Facing the Future:
  “Then, like all of us walking into the day, into the one thing there’s plenty of: the future.” — Rick Barot (06:40)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:22 – Maggie Smith introduces the episode’s theme: shared poetry.
• 00:50 – Barot’s “first meal in America” as metaphor for abundance.
• 01:18 – The teacher’s rice-sorting lesson: memory and patience.
• 02:10 – “So many of the things I love don't love me back…” and wonder.
• 02:40 – Sharing lives and poetry on summer grass.
• 03:10 – Referencing Larkin and Dickinson; poetry’s raw honesty.
• 03:30 – “Best to always read poems this way…”: poetry as face-to-face intimacy.
• 03:35 – The space between lines, the space between people.
• 04:10 – Cataloguing the details: abundance in knowledge and daily life.
• 04:30 – The etymology of “closet”; space as intimacy and affirmation.
• 05:05 – A panorama of America’s daily abundance.
• 06:40 – Final affirmation: stepping into “the one thing there’s plenty of: the future.”

Tone and Takeaway

With serene appreciation, Maggie Smith and Rick Barot invite listeners to celebrate everyday abundance—found in food, patience, poetry, memories, and all the moments we share with each other. The episode gently insists that attention, care, and presence are radical forms of hope, and that a poem, especially when read aloud with someone else, is “its own abundance.”