The Allure of Slow Living

“Going Home: New Orleans” is a celebration of taking one’s time to live in the present moment. The poem is told through an interconnected pattern of memories through which the speaker revisits a much more languid period of their lives. The memories are triggered through a single moment of slowing down: “slowness enters me like something familiar, / and it feels like going home” (Lines 3-4). The implication is that this moment allows the speaker to briefly, temporarily escape the rush and hustle of the everyday. The word “slow” is given particular attention throughout the poem, repeated several times in a single line and used in a variety of ways: noun, adjective, verb, and even synonym in “sloe” (Line 10). Musically, the word “slow” has an onomatopoeic quality in its soft consonants and long vowel; the word can be drawn out as long...