This audio recording of Wallace Stevens is the opposite of the news.

It’s been a real week, hasn’t it?

Here’s one thing that may make it the slightest bit easier: Because it is his birthday, and because I’m personally in need of anything that can slow my heart rate for a few minutes at a time, I present to you this audio clip of Wallace Stevens reading his poem “Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour.”

Stevens’ reading is slow; it is meditative; it is filled with many pauses; it is, tonally, the opposite of everything else happening in the world. Listen, take a deep breath, and relax.