Slow Down with Poetry: Why It Still Matters Today
Maybe your coffee's gone cold again. Or maybe you're reading this on your phone between tabs, between risks, between everything else. I get it - the world doesn't really slow down anymore. It just scrolls.
Poetry probably isn't on your to-do list today. For most of us, it slips away quietly once we leave school. There's work to do, groceries to remember, bills to pay. What use is a poem when your inbox has 46 unread emails?
But here's the thing: poetry isn't about use. It's not a tool to fix your day. It's a place to rest inside it.
A poem - even a short one - can feel like a window cracked open. The air shifts. Something stirs. You feel more like a person again and less like a machine.
Tolkien once said that escaping from a prison isn't cowardice - it's common sense. He was talking about fantasy, but I think it applies here too. Poetry isn't an escape from life. It's a way to find your way back to it, with softer eyes and a steadier heart.
So I'll ask you gently:
When was the last time you read something that didn't want anything from you, and just wanted you to stay with it for a while?The Age of Acceleration
We scroll, we skim, we move on
You know the feeling: a constant flicker of tabs and notifications, a thousand stories packaged into bite-sized reels. Technology isn’t just fast — it’s hyper fast. The kind of fast that sometimes makes everything feel a bit… unreal. Like we’ve slipped into a sci-fi world without noticing. News breaks. Trends shift. Your phone lights up with another thing to know, then forget.
We read so much — captions, comments, emails, essays — but how much of it actually lands? How much do we remember, or truly think through?
Even those of us who crave focus — who long to sit with one thing for more than a few seconds — get caught up in the loop. For folks with ADHD (and honestly, for anyone living in this constant hum of input), it’s exhausting. We keep trying to keep up, even when our nervous systems are already overloaded.
But here’s what’s harder to admit: it’s not just time that slips away in all this noise. It’s ourselves. Our attention, our creativity, our ability to be moved by something slowly — they get swept up, dulled down.
And that’s where poetry comes in.
Poetry doesn’t fight for your attention. It doesn’t shout. It waits. It offers something rare: presence without productivity. Just a few lines, quietly asking you to pause, absorb, return to yourself.
What Poetry Offers in a Fast World
1. Slowing Down to Connect
Poetry slows us down - not because it's difficult, but because it asks something rare of us: attention. We have to sit with the words, maybe read, maybe pause and wonder. And that's where something shifts. In that moment of focus, we feel more connected - to the poem, to ourselves, to the world around us.
Poetry isn't background noise. It invites you in. It cultivates empathy. And sometimes, you spend more time with one stanza than you would scrolling through an entire feed. In doing this, poetry can train us to move through life differently - with more care. More feeling. It makes us sensitive to the texture of things again.
2. Lines That Stay With us
Poetry doesn't always shout. But it stays. Not like a headline or a notification - more like a murmur that finds its way back into your thoughts when you're walking home, or staring out of a window, or folding laundry. Last week, out of nowhere, a line by Sujata Bhatt returned to me. Fierce. Heavy. Unavoidable:
"What language / has not been the oppressor's tongue?What language / truly meant to murder someone?"
I'd read it years ago - and suddenly, there is was again. Sharp as ever. That's the thing about a good poem: it plants itself in you. Not for noise, but for memory. It lingers, it surfaces, it stays.3. Poetry Tells the Truth
Poetry doesn't lie. It doesn't flatten or polish your feelings. It meets you in them.
In a world of branded identities and curated emotional expressions, a poem is refreshingly honest. It says the quiet part out loud - the longing, the shame, the wonder, the mess.
Even if a poem's language is unfamiliar or metaphorical, that feeling underneath is human. It's recognisable. It speaks to the condition of being alive in a body that's always sensing, remembering, hurting, hoping.
Sometimes, poetry also gives you the words you didn't know you were looking for. Other times, it gives you the comfort of knowing someone else felt it too.Forget Anaysis — Just Feel
Poetry isn’t a test. It’s an experience.
Let’s be real: a lot of us carry baggage when it comes to poetry. Maybe you were made to analyse poems in school you didn’t care about. Maybe you picked up a collection once, read three lines, and thought: What does this even mean?
And if you’ve spent your life in science, tech, or practical fields, poetry might feel not just unfamiliar — but kind of pointless. Like… what does this do for me? And if you’re being honest, sometimes it makes you feel dumb — like there’s a secret door you’re not allowed through
But here’s the thing: poetry doesn’t ask you to “get it” in one go. You’re allowed to pause, reread, not understand. You’re allowed to feel something before you explain it.
There’s no right way to read a poem. You don’t need a degree in literature to feel moved. You don’t need to “solve” it. Poetry is not a quiz — it’s a quiet encounter. A poem can be confusing, yes. But it can also be a mirror. A flashlight. A friend.
You don’t need permission to enter. You’re already allowed in.
The Poem That Found Me
The other day, after many weeks of numbness — the kind that settles in when you’re stuck in survival mode — I reached for a book I’d recently picked up in physical form: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I wasn’t expecting much. I just knew I needed something quieter than my own thoughts.
I read the opening poem, The Coming of the Ship, and something in me shifted. Gibran’s words spoke not of goals, errands, or deadlines — but of life and death, of arrivals and departures, of the soul’s place between them.
For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t stuck in the machinery of my daily concerns. It wasn’t calculating or planning or reacting. I was simply being, touched by something older and more essential than whatever I had been worrying about. I felt present. Human. And oddly, alive again.
That’s what poetry can do. Not all at once, and not always, but sometimes — it loosens the grip of the world just enough to let you return to it differently.
Poetry as Resistance, and as Home
In a world that moves too fast, poetry helps us remember who we are — and that we’re not alone.
In our increasingly chaotic, hyper-productive world, poetry offers a quiet form of rebellion. It doesn’t sell anything. It doesn’t shout for attention. It doesn’t fit neatly into a 15-second video.
And that’s the point. Poetry resists the flattening of our lives into schedules, tasks, algorithms. It insists that feeling is just as valuable as output. That presence matters more than performance. That slowness, strangeness, softness — all the things we’re told to suppress — are worth preserving.
But more than resistance, poetry is also recognition. It reminds us that someone else has thought these thoughts. Felt this ache. Wondered this exact wonder. There’s nothing more comforting — or radical — than realising you’re not the only one. When you read poetry, you place yourself in a long lineage of minds who refused to go numb. It’s not a luxury. It’s a lifeline. In the middle of all this hustle, you need that — we all do.
An Invitation to Begin
There's no right way to begin.
No secret password. No score to keep.
Just pick a poem - any poem - and give it your attention.
Read it like you're listening to a friend.
Then read it again.
That's all. That's enough.
Here's one I recommend: “The Peace of Wild Things” – Wendell BerryOne poem. Once a month. In your inbox, gently.
Read, reflect, remember you’re not alone.
About the Author
I'm Sweety Isaac, a literature teacher for 7 years with a postgraduate certificate in Literature. I create quiet spaces for adults to reconnect with poetry - and with themselves.Each month, I share one thoughtfully chosen poem, along with:A soft, reflective commentaryJournaling prompts for personal insightA beautiful, printable worksheet to help you engage deeply
It's $2/month - a small exchange for something might shift your week.Other Posts:
