Podcast Summary: The Slowdown – Episode 1453

Title: "Closing Time; Iskandariya" by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Host: Samia Bashir (Guest host)
Date: February 10, 2026
Publisher: American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation

Overview

In this episode, guest host Samia Bashir steps in for regular host Maggie Smith to guide listeners through reflection and poetic appreciation. The episode centers on Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s poem, which Bashir reads and meditates upon. Using the scorpion as metaphor and companion, Bashir draws connections between poetic craft, creaturely nature, and the nuance of misunderstood danger.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction: The Scorpion as a Life-Long Motif

[00:41] – [01:10]

• Bashir introduces herself by noting her birth date and lifelong fascination with scorpions:

  "Born on October 27, I've been learning about scorpions all my life. Delicate but dangerous, these dark dwellers have long been central to our many mythologies."

• She identifies the scorpion’s duality: dangerous yet primarily reclusive and misunderstood.
• Bashir connects this creature’s qualities to her aspirations in poetry: containing complexity, history, and misunderstanding in a single potent image.

Framing the Poem: Danger, Misunderstandings, and Poetry

[01:10] – [01:35]

• Bashir introduces the poem’s power:

  "Today's poem, in ways that I aspire to in my own writing life, manages to take a deep breath in and collapse 2000 years of danger into a single moment of misunderstanding."

• The poem is lauded for its emotional and thematic range, likened to "the diaphragmatic power of an operatic diva."
• Bashir invokes Indiana Jones to reference cultural tropes:

  "It's the smallest scorpions which are the most deadly."

Poem Reading: “Iskandariya” by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

[01:35] – [05:40]

• Bashir reads the poem, which is framed as a dialogue with God about requests and misinterpretations.
• The poem explores themes of:
  • Asking and Receiving: “It was not a scorpion I asked for. I asked for a fish. But maybe God misheard my request.”
  • Accidents and Attachment: The narrator receives a scorpion instead of a fish, and reflects on how both God and humans forget details, leading to unexpected outcomes.
  • Nature of the Scorpion:
    • "A peculiar prehistoric creature, part lobster, part spider... not a thing you can eat or even take on a meaningful walk, so ugly is it..."
    • Beyond menace, the scorpion is characterized as shy and reclusive:

      "In truth it is shy the scorpion, a creature with eight eyes and almost no sight, who shuns the daylight and is driven mad by fire... only throws out its poison barb when backed against a wall."

    • The speaker identifies with this misunderstood creature:

      "A thing like me, but not the thing I asked for, a thing by accident or design I am now attached to."

  • Vulnerability and Hope:
    • Only “twice in many years have I been stung, both times because, unthinking, I let in the terrible light.”
    • The scorpion’s “lungs” are imagined as “pages of a book” in a beautiful, almost mythological vision of bodily breath and interiority.
    • The scorpion becomes “a little mirror of the library at Alexandria, which burned.”

Reflection on the Poem:

[05:40] – [05:56]

• Bashir’s delivery and selection highlight the tension between what we wish for and what life delivers, and the potential in seeing beauty and meaning—even in misunderstood, feared things.
• By poem’s end, the scorpion is transformed from a simple symbol of danger into “a house of books…carrying in his belly all the perishable manuscripts.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On misunderstanding and fate:

  “It was not a scorpion I asked for. I asked for a fish. But maybe God misheard my request.”
  (Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem, 01:37)

• On creaturely beauty in the overlooked:

  “He is a house of books, my shy scorpion, carrying in his belly all the perishable manuscripts. A little mirror of the library at Alexandria, which burned.”
  (Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem, 05:28)

• On similarity with the scorpion:

  “A thing like me, but not the thing I asked for, a thing by accident or design I am now attached to.”
  (Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem, 04:33)

• Bashir’s interpretative insight:

  "This poem walks our own missteps on the eight small feet and single stinging tail of a scorpion."
  (Samia Bashir, 01:19)

Episode Flow & Timestamps

• [00:41] — Samia Bashir introduces herself and the scorpion as daily and lifelong symbol.
• [01:10] — Sets up the poem with reflections on danger and misunderstanding.
• [01:35] — Reads Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s poem in full.
• [05:40] — Brief outro and return to the show’s daily poetry mission.

Tone & Takeaway

The episode maintains a reflective, meditative tone, inviting listeners to consider how poetry can help us see the world—and even ourselves—through the lens of empathy and creative inquiry. The poem becomes not just an object of analysis but a lived metaphor for reimagining what we fear or misunderstand.

Perfect for:
Listeners seeking calm, reflective content, anyone interested in poetry’s power to shift perception, and those who appreciate explorations of metaphor, myth, and human vulnerability.