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Transcript
Sleep Number Representative (0:00)
Why Choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed.
This Old House Host (0:02)
Can I make my side softer?
Sleep Number Representative (0:03)
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Major Jackson (0:30)
Hi there, it's me, Major Jackson. As I transition from my role as host of the Slowdown, we're taking a look through our archive of episodes. With such a deep well of poetry and reflection, it's a pleasure to revisit these moments together. Here's an episode from my time on the show. I'm Major Jackson, and this is the Slowdown. In seventh grade, my teacher, Mrs. Neesmith, instituted current Affairs. Friday, the Philadelphia Inquirer printed an abridged version of its newspaper for classroom use, which we read every week. Sometimes Mrs. Neesmith projected slides that came with the paper. I can still hear the clicking sound of the carousel. She quizzed us in the dark as the faces of world leaders, celebrities and sports figures filled the room. Usually we read articles out loud, then split off into opposing groups to argue a position. Depending on the topic, some students were deeply impassioned. Others were age appropriately ambivalent. I remember James Tyler's voice rising as he spoke about the death penalty and Janet Mayer making an argument for saving American hostages in Iran. Christian Heather gave an enthusiastic presentation on leg warmers as a fashion trend. I mostly stared out a window, marveling at my friends deeply held beliefs, their acute observations. I hadn't known that they were politically roused by issues or thought intently about culture. It was one of the distinct moments where I felt myself leaving our childhood of nary a care in the world. We were becoming concerned citizens, members of our community. Some of us, you could argue, were becoming, dare I say it? Woke. We were moving into that language of burgeoning awareness. Some people shrug at today's headlines, as others have shrugged at past political struggles. We are asked to educate ourselves to address so much climate justice, rising fascism, disability rights, among many other societal challenges. The more we open ourselves to the urgency of these concerns, the greater we realize these are issues of the spirit which sometimes needs protection, especially during cantankerous times. Today's poem unapologetically claims psychic space in order to be at peace and clear eyed. The speaker foregoes decorative language that would obscure what their heart and mind believe is ethically true. This is a poem by Dawn Lundy Martin if only I could be your preacher. But I ain't no hope or hope place for you to rest your wary head. I am a person like you. Devastated break inside the impossibility. A land that calls itself a name, a God, a people. When we say there is already a name, a God, a people. And even if there wasn't the human body, it's subtle flesh. I cannot pray with any of you because the bodies can't be buried or are already or stain our stupid American teeth. Fresh meat being fresh meat, the microcosm eliminating the world, it spasms. What is a spasm but an elevating sphere like a relevant sophistication in which we know slathering mouths hunt insatiable underneath rock bone. There's no room for metaphors now. Only limb stubs, little legs made horror in new smallness. I am at a party. I am at an art reception. What have you. Why this? Why is this what you care so much about? Take me to the river, darlings. Take me to the drowning place and the drowned. Take me to the snake forest and the big police dogs and the camps and the suicide regimes. Take me howl and fist. Take me gutted Symbol for your newspaper rituals and unrelenting prisons of ideology. The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. This project is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. On the web@arts.gov to get a pawn delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter and find us on Instagram. Slowdown show.