1383: The Situation in Our City by Ciona Rouse

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
Host: Maggie Smith
Episode: 1383: The Situation in Our City by Ciona Rouse
Date: October 28, 2025

In this episode, Maggie Smith offers a poignant meditation on the power of poetry to hold both private joys and public sorrows, using Ciona Rouse’s “The Situation in Our City” as a focal point. The episode explores the coexistence of beauty and tragedy in our lives, inviting listeners to reflect deeply on empathy, circumstance, and the ways communities can both grieve and protect.

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Episode Breakdown

1. The Step Back: Simultaneous Realities

[01:35–02:43]

• Maggie Smith opens the episode by urging listeners to acknowledge the multitude of experiences occurring at any given moment:

  • Births, marriages, people receiving life-changing news—“big, bright, beautiful things are happening at this very moment.”
  • “None of them headline news. We won't even know about them. While you listen to and absorb the poem, I'll share with you today, people will finish marathons and collapse into the arms of people they love. People will adopt pets who lick their faces with gratitude. On the car ride home, people will work up the courage to play their first original song on guitar at an open mic.” (Maggie Smith, 01:51)
  • At the same time, tragedies are unfolding—loss, injury, grief.

• The juxtaposition highlights how life’s celebrations and devastations are constant, often invisible, and almost always intertwined.

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2. Theme Introduction: The Coin Flip of Experience

[02:44–03:29]

• Maggie reflects on the overwhelming nature of holding these opposing realities.
  • “But also at any given moment people are dying or being gravely injured or receiving terrible life altering news. It can be overwhelming to think about this flip side of the coin, but that is what today's poem invites us to do.” (Maggie Smith, 02:58)
  • She introduces today’s poem as an invitation to dwell in the space between luck and loss, and to examine the role both chance and care play in our lives.

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3. Notable Quote: James Baldwin

[03:30]

• Maggie references James Baldwin’s famous line to frame the episode’s exploration of communal responsibility:
  • “As James Baldwin famously wrote, the children are always ours.”
  • This quote serves as a foundation for the episode's consideration of empathy and collective care.

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4. Featured Poem: “The Situation in Our City” by Ciona Rouse

[03:33–05:10]

• The poem begins with the suggestion of rain but immediately pivots away from simple weather metaphors:
  • “I could write about rain … This is not about rain. This is not about weather or a storm. And especially not Alvin, Texas, where I've never been before.”
• Rouse roots the poem in Atlanta, the site of the poet’s birth, which coincided with the infamous Atlanta Child Murders:
  • “I was born while children died, murdered. A Black child left his house five miles away as I came to be. But he never came home.”
• The poem lists the everyday joys and mundanities the murdered child will never experience again:
  • “Never again dragged flakes of caked up mud from the sole of his shoes into his apartment. Never again ordered a handful of big bowls gum at the mart on the corner. Never again wore the 9pm scent of 12 year old boy.”
• The poem transforms the motif of rain into a metaphor for overwhelming grief and fear in the Black community:
  • “Truth is this is about a storm. It's about a thunder that dropped Black mamas to their knees, a lightning that cracked necks, left bodies floating, dragged from rivers—how the rain fell for 24 whole months and nobody could see through sheets of sorrow and fear.”
• The poem closes on the intimacy and fear of parenting amidst violence:
  • “I came here when the situation in the city meant my daddy looked everyone in the eyes and shot daggers, my mama showed me the world while squeezing my body too tight. Everywhere we’d go, my body close to hers, so close to feel my breath wet her skin, so close to keep me breathing.”

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5. Reflection and Takeaways

[05:11–End]

• Maggie does not provide an extended after-poem reflection in this segment, but the poem itself—paired with Baldwin's words—asks listeners to sit with discomfort, highlighting how chance and circumstance shape lives, and how communities respond in protective, sometimes desperate ways.

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Memorable Quotes

• “So many big, bright, beautiful things are happening at this very moment. None of them headline news. We won't even know about them.”
  – Maggie Smith, [01:43]

• “It can be overwhelming to think about this flip side of the coin, but that is what today's poem invites us to do. This poem has me thinking more and more about chance and about our circumstances. It also has me thinking about the ways we can take care of one another and how we can and must do better.”
  – Maggie Smith, [02:58–03:18]

• “As James Baldwin famously wrote, the children are always ours…”
  – Maggie Smith, [03:30]

• “Everywhere we'd go, my body close to hers, so close to feel my breath wet her skin, so close to keep me breathing.”
  – Ciona Rouse, read by Maggie Smith, [04:53]

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Key Segment Timestamps

• 01:35–02:43: Maggie Smith reflects on simultaneous joys and sorrows in the world.
• 02:44–03:29: Introduction of the poem’s theme—chance, tragedy, and communal care.
• 03:30: James Baldwin quote on collective responsibility.
• 03:33–05:10: Poem “The Situation in Our City” by Ciona Rouse (full reading).

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Conclusion

This episode of The Slowdown urges listeners to hold the fullness of human experience—the joys and the pain—through the lens of poetry. “The Situation in Our City” is both a remembrance and a warning, a tribute to lost children and an indictment of the circumstances that allowed their loss. Maggie Smith’s gentle guidance and Rouse’s powerful language combine to create an episode that asks us to look closely: at our histories, our privileges, our fears, and our capacity for collective care.

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Transcript

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I'm Maggie Smith, and this is the slowdown on this planet at this very moment. Saturn. So many things are happening all at once in these next few minutes. As you listen to this episode, babies will be born. Couples will get married. People will receive incredible news about their health or their careers or the art they've been making. So many big, bright, beautiful things are happening at this very moment. None of them headline news. We won't even know about them. While you listen to and absorb the poem, I'll share with you today, people will finish marathons and collapse into the arms of people they love. People will adopt pets who lick their faces with gratitude. On the car ride home, people will work up the courage to play their first original song on guitar at an open mic. Right now, somewhere in the world, flowers are opening for the first time. Birds are taking flight for the first time. Spiders are weaving their first webs. It's mind boggling and uplifting to think about all of the celebration worthy things that are happening at this very moment. But also at any given moment people are dying or being gravely injured or receiving terrible life altering news. It can be overwhelming to think about this flip side of the coin, but that is what today's poem invites us to do. This poem has me thinking more and more about chance and about our circumstances. It also has me thinking about the ways we can take care of one another and how we can and must do better. As James Baldwin famously wrote, the children are always ours the Situation in Our City By Siana Rouse I could write about rain I could write about rain and how it fell for 24 hours straight in Alvin, Texas on July 25, 1979. This is not about rain. This is not about weather or a storm. And especially not Alvin, Texas, where I've never been before. I've been to Atlanta, Georgia. I was there first. I learned of light and breath in Atlanta on July 25, 1979. I was born while children died, murdered. A black child left his house five miles away as I came to be. But he never came home. He never again dragged flakes of caked up mud from the sole of his shoes into his apartment. Never again ordered a handful of big bowls gum at the mart on the corner. Never again wore the 9pm scent of 12 year old boy. Truth is this is about a storm. It's about a thunder that dropped black mamas to their knees, A lightning that cracked necks, left bodies floating dragged from rivers how the rain fell for 24 whole months and nobody could see through sheets of sorrow and fear. I came here when the situation in the city meant My daddy looked everyone in the eyes and shot daggers My mama showed me the world while squeezing my body too tight Everywhere we'd go, my body close to hers so close to feel my breath wet her skin so close to keep me breathing. 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 blueskylowdownshow.org hey, it's Maggie. Every weekday, the Slowdown delivers the creativity and care of poetry to all free of charge, and your support makes it possible. Donating to the Slowdown is easy. Just go to slowdownshow.org donate to make your gift in less time than it takes to listen to an episode.