1513: Climacteric by Kelly Gray

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
Episode: 1513: “Climacteric” by Kelly Gray
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: May 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this reflective episode, host Maggie Smith introduces Kelly Gray’s poem Climacteric, drawing connections between midlife transitions, personal loss, and the cyclical nature of grief. Smith explores both the ancient and modern meanings of “climacteric,” setting up the poem as an intimate meditation on endings, aging, and transformation. The episode offers listeners a compassionate space to consider their own life passages and the evolving forms grief can take.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Midlife Reflections and the Nature of Change

• Host Maggie Smith opens (01:06) with a deeply personal meditation on the experience of midlife:
  • She describes “embracing the changes” while also mourning the endings—her children growing up, a beloved era passing.
  • Acknowledges the “strange season” where loss and growth coexist:

    “Some doors are closing as others open. My kids are almost grown. I'm nearing the end of a long and much loved era… Loss is inevitable, but so is growth.” (01:16)

  • Smith accepts both pain and gratitude as inherent to this phase:

    “Despite the fact that loss and change are inevitable, they can feel wrong and hard to reconcile. It's exactly this feeling of wrongness that shows me how much I loved what I am losing, what I am leaving behind.” (01:35)

2. Interpreting “Climacteric”

• Definition explores the poem’s title (02:01):
  • “Climacteric” has origins in ancient Greek thinking—“set turning points in our lives.”
  • Modern medical context: the bodily transition away from fertility (perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause).
  • Smith frames this moment as “ancient, contemporary, inevitable, and at times hard to reconcile.” (02:23)

3. Reading of “Climacteric” by Kelly Gray (Full poem recited: 02:31–07:55)

• Thematic Highlights:
  • Grief personified—ever-present, intimate, sometimes mundane.
  • Rich, layered imagery:
    • Grief as a companion with shoes; as a character named “Sally;” as a bird, as lichen, as an undressing.
    • Grief’s connection to the body: transitions of womanhood, aging, menstruation ceasing (“You stopped using tampons two years ago”), birth (“The grief is crowning with its pointed head”).
  • Surreal scenes show grief’s complexity:
    • “The grief is the life cycle of a fish brought in on the hook, cooked on the fire, served on the plate.”
    • “Your grief smells like a motel room… is a blindfolded man in his 20s tied to a chair…”
  • Reflection on memory, family, and loss—calls in the night, animal deaths, rituals fading.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On recognizing the depth of our grief:

  “It's exactly this feeling of wrongness that shows me how much I loved what I am losing, what I am leaving behind.”
  — Maggie Smith, (01:35)

• On the nature of the climacteric:

  “A contemporary medical climacteric is the period of life in which fertility declines and ends… Something ancient, contemporary, inevitable, and at times hard to reconcile.”
  — Maggie Smith, (02:13)

• Lines from Kelly Gray’s Poem (select excerpts with timestamps within reading, approx. 02:31–07:55):

  “Of course your grief is alive. It has shoes. It walks next to you, hands you a cigarette, wipes the mascara from your cheekbone.”
  (02:45, Kelly Gray)

  “Your grief is the life cycle of a fish brought in on the hook, cooked on the fire, served on the plate.”
  (~04:10, Kelly Gray)

  “Try collecting blood your whole life with only cotton and paper. Now it's retreating. Blood just in the heart. Your grief is being born.”
  (~04:45, Kelly Gray)

  “The first dog death makes the rest of the dogs hard to enjoy.”
  (~05:50, Kelly Gray)

  “Grief is what you do on the side of the road when no one is watching.”
  (~06:40, Kelly Gray)

  “Grief is the wolf waltzing with the girl before she shanks the soft side of his belly. Forget your boots, put on your good shoes.”
  (~07:30, Kelly Gray)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [01:06] – Maggie Smith’s midlife reflection; setting the episode’s contemplative tone
• [02:01] – Explanation of “climacteric,” connecting ancient and modern perspectives
• [02:31–07:55] – Full reading of “Climacteric” by Kelly Gray
• [03:30–06:30] – Poem’s exploration of grief as sensory, cyclical, physical, and surreal experience
• [07:55] – Gentle transition out; closing invitation to listeners to engage daily with poetry

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Tone & Takeaway

The episode’s tone is gentle, intimate, and reflective—mirroring the poem’s vulnerability and surreal imagery. Maggie Smith guides listeners to honor grief as an ever-present companion, one that marks significant turning points in life’s journey. Through Climacteric, listeners are invited both to witness the messiness of transition and to recognize the peculiar gifts of change.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

And Doug there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[C]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[B]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[C]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[B]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[C]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[D]

I'm Maggie Smith, and this is the Slowdown. Midlife is a Strange Sense season. I find myself both embracing the changes to my life and also grieving a little. Some doors are closing as others open. My kids are almost grown. I'm nearing the end of a long and much loved era. I can't reject the fact that things change. Loss is inevitable, but so is growth. There is a natural order to things that we only partially understand. So despite the fact that loss and change are inevitable, they can feel wrong and hard to reconcile. It's exactly this feeling of wrongness that shows me how much I loved what I am losing, what I am leaving behind. I had to look up the title of today's poem to learn its meaning. One definition of the word climacteric is connected to the idea that of climacteric years, which the ancient Greeks considered as set turning points in our lives. A contemporary medical climacteric is the period of life in which fertility declines and ends. It includes perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. An era on the timeline set by a person's body. Something ancient, contemporary, inevitable, and at times hard to reconcile. Climacteric by Kelly Gray of course your grief is alive. It has shoes. It walks next to you, hands you a cigarette, wipes the mascara from your cheekbone. Hello, grief. Hello, Sally. Does anyone name their child Sally anymore? There was once a train that pulled the dead through the mountains. The bells rung. The black face of the bird ate meat from your hands. That's the type of grief, the one with the platinum wig and blue eyeshadow. The green grief of lichen streaks down the trees to the yellow patches of snow. The north side of grief is you undressed. Put your boots on in the south. Your grief is the life cycle of a fish brought in on the hook, cooked on the fire, served on the plate. We only sell chipped enamel here. You stopped using tampons two years ago. A hot tub can kill you. Try collecting blood your whole life with only cotton and paper. Now it's retreating. Blood just in the heart. Your grief is being born. Episiotomies are so 1990s. How we tore like cloth. The grief is crowning with its pointed head. The skull will fuse, touch the soft spot of grief. Your grief smells like a motel room. Your grief is a blindfolded man in his 20s tied to a chair with his head bowed and mouth gagged. Grief is that you forgot what happened next. Someone hung stars in your room. Someone fed the animals, gave them beds of hay. The first dog death makes the rest of the dogs hard to enjoy. Everyone has a place in the scandal. Did you see the way the earth turned red? Grief is what you do on the side of the road when no one is watching. Did you see how the phone rang when no one in the house wanted to touch it? That call in the middle of the night, A thousand dying owls. The griefly way the rats rejoiced. Grief is the wolf waltzing with the girl before she shanks the soft side of his belly. Forget your boots, put on your good shoes. 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, SlowdownShow and Blueskylowdownshow.org.

[E]

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