Episode Overview

Episode Title: 1400: The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I) by Bob Hicok
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: November 20, 2025

In this episode of The Slowdown, host and poet Maggie Smith explores the deep connection between poetry and profound human emotions such as grief and love. Through a reading of Bob Hicok’s poem “The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I),” Maggie reflects on poetry’s unique ability to express the ineffable, especially in moments of loss. The episode serves as both a meditation on the limits of language during grief and a celebration of poetry's transformative role in our lives.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Poetry as Witness to Emotion

• Poems as Companions in Grief and Celebration
  • Maggie Smith shares that even those who don't consider themselves “poetry people” often turn to poetry during pivotal life events—weddings, funerals, and other moments that “call for something more than we’re able to achieve with our own words” (01:37).
• Why Poetry Speaks When We Cannot
  • She notes the universality of emotions like grief, love, and gratitude, but emphasizes how inarticulate those feelings can be:

    “Grief, love, longing, gratitude. These are universal human emotions, and yet they are difficult to articulate. More than any genre, perhaps poetry can help us say the unsayable.” (02:06)

• Personal Rituals & Poetic Traditions
  • Maggie reflects on her own wedding and traditions—citing E.E. Cummings, Shakespeare, Rumi—as poets often chosen for milestones, and muses on which poems might someday accompany her own funeral (02:29).

Introduction to "The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I)"

• Maggie introduces Bob Hicok’s poem as one that “grapples with grief and with how inarticulate grief can be,” highlighting its relevance to the human need for poetry in loss (03:00).

Poem Reading: “The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I)” by Bob Hicok

Read by Maggie Smith (03:15–05:10)

Notable Excerpts & Reflections

• On the Failure of Language in Grief:

  “When I wanted to say something profound that he would hear, that a tree could understand, that the wind would feel. But the only words I could come up with were a handful of dirt.” (03:30)

• The Sound of Mourning:

  “The sound of it hitting his coffin, as if shouting at him, woke me up...” (03:46)

• Continuity & Absence:

  “I am now fathered but fatherless, a being whose being can half be traced to a hole in the ground where my father’s beard is and his bones.” (04:04)

• Memory, Time, & Erosion:

  “...rain with patience and the greed of love to hold will slowly erase his name and everything it touches.” (04:30)

• Universality of Loss:

  “It always sounds like a eulogy to me, the sky trying to figure out what to say about loss and making a mess of it like the rest of us.” (04:48)

After the Poem: Final Reflections (05:12–End)

• Maggie reiterates poetry’s power to help us “find our footing in an uncertain world, especially during challenging times” (05:12).
• She encourages listeners to make space for poetry’s daily influence, describing it as an “infusion of poetry’s transformative power” (05:17).

Notable Quotes

• “I hope that listening to The Slowdown each day and getting a little infusion of poetry’s transformative power improves your life, too. I’m here and you’re here, so I’d call us poetry people.”
  — Maggie Smith (01:50)
• “Poems often say what we cannot.”
  — Maggie Smith (02:55)
• “It always sounds like a eulogy to me, the sky trying to figure out what to say about loss and making a mess of it like the rest of us.”
  — Bob Hicok, read by Maggie Smith (04:48)

Timestamps

• 01:37 — Maggie welcomes listeners, framing poetry as a daily grounding force.
• 02:29 — Reflections on poetry at special moments and the challenge of articulating emotion.
• 03:00 — Introduction to today’s poem and its themes.
• 03:15–05:10 — Full reading of “The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (I)” by Bob Hicok.
• 05:12–End — Closing thoughts on poetic reflection and daily practice.

Tone and Style

Maggie’s tone is warm, contemplative, and accessible. She speaks as a fellow “poetry person,” inviting listeners to find comfort, hope, and shared humanity in the attentive reading of poetry. The episode reflects the gentle intimacy and quiet revelation that are hallmarks of The Slowdown.

This summary offers a complete picture of the heart of this episode—its meditation on poetry in times of grief—and captures both the wisdom and emotional resonance that Maggie Smith and Bob Hicok bring to listeners.