The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1392: Local Mission by Kai Carlson-Wee
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: November 10, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Maggie Smith invites listeners to experience the poem “Local Mission” by Kai Carlson-Wee without preamble or analysis, encouraging a fresh encounter with its language and imagery. Smith emphasizes the importance of approaching art without expectations and offers the poem as a meditative journey on attention, presence, memory, and the language we use to navigate our lives.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Art Without Expectations

• Maggie’s Invitation:
  • [01:01] “I'm someone who likes to read a book without having read any reviews or think pieces about the book or the author... Sometimes I prefer to engage with art, to listen to a record or see a film without expectations, with a relatively clean slate.”
  • Smith explains her preference for unmediated experiences with art and encourages the listener to “let its many pleasures find you,” setting the tone for a direct, unfiltered engagement with the poem.

2. Reading of “Local Mission” by Kai Carlson-Wee

• The poem itself is presented in its entirety, its meditative flow touching on moments of quiet observation, the intersection of place and self, and the ways language frames experience.
• Key poetic imagery and themes:
  • Moments of waking amidst “a vacant thought or daytime trance brought on by the rain,”
  • The cityscape intertwined with nature—“leaves have suddenly moved on a nearby tree,” and “billboards advertising real estate agents, waterfront seafood restaurants, bleach.”
  • Leisure, pleasure, and youth—questions of what is lost or retained as time passes:
    • “I have been told that this is called leisure or pleasure or something related to the vague abstraction of youth, something I'll slowly grow out of...”
  • Evoking a future self becoming “sewn to this rhythm and wise,” while the world’s details blend into words:
    • “The language will not let me leave it... and my heart will be sown to this rhythm and wise.”
  • Wildness at the margins: parks “where red wing blackbirds twitter in the sun,” and children “crush a little bead against their rings,” holding time in wonder.
  • The limits of language:
    • “Each leaf, each particular grain of sand, each invisible current of wheat is lost on the structure of words...here on earth the truth goes on sleeping and the orbiting stars go on claiming their horror without us.”
  • Restlessness and searching, moving through “eastern Montana towns,” construction sites, and boxcars, exploring the complexity, beauty, and burdens of earthly life.
  • Final lines:
    • “I'll trade you the rest of my life to believe it. The wheat and the thresher, the deer in the ditch”—suggesting a longing for immersion in reality, to find meaning in the details of the world.

3. Reflection, Community, and Purpose

• After the poem, Maggie Smith underscores the guiding purpose of The Slowdown:
  • [End] “Listening to and reading poetry helps us find our footing in an uncertain world, especially during challenging times.”
• She notes the role of poetry as an anchor and invites listeners to continue engaging with poetry daily.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Maggie Smith on encountering art:
  • [01:01] “I want you to have that experience with today's poem, a longer one, so I'm going to get out of the way, listen, and let its many pleasures find you.”
• Kai Carlson-Wee, from “Local Mission”:
  • [01:20] “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of a vacant thought or daytime trance brought on by the rain...”
  • [02:00] “I sense a kind of presence not unlike the hum of electrical wires or the faded reflection of clouds passing over a lake, the way they are shown to themselves without eyes.”
  • [02:30] “And I have been told that this is called leisure or pleasure or something related to the vague abstraction of youth, something I'll slowly grow out of winter by winter silence, by song, whatever repeats and remembers itself in a name.”
  • [03:00] “The world is still imbued with light and a feeling that each leaf, each particular grain of sand, each invisible current of wheat is lost on the structure of words...”
  • [03:40] “Where do we go from here?”
  • [04:10] “I'll trade you the rest of my life to believe it. The wheat and the thresher, the deer in the ditch.”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:01] – Maggie’s introduction, thoughts on engaging with art without expectations.
• [01:20 - 04:20] – Full reading of “Local Mission” by Kai Carlson-Wee.
• [04:21+] – Maggie’s brief reflection on poetry’s role in uncertain times and supporting the show.

Summary

This episode invites listeners to pause and immerse themselves in the sensory, reflective landscape of Kai Carlson-Wee’s “Local Mission.” Through Smith’s gentle guidance and the poem’s vivid, unpredictable journey—from city corners to wild groves, from present consciousness to memory and longing—listeners are encouraged to lean into the act of noticing, reflecting, and inhabiting language fully. The episode stands as a reminder of poetry’s power to ground us in our own lives and the world’s subtle wonders, offering a daily act of hope and presence.