This episode was originally released on June 21, 2023.

Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

I do not keep a diary of daily activities, but if I did, yesterday would have looked something like this:

7:00am Morning bike ride with Anthony

9:30am Coffee with colleague Nancy to discuss MFA program

10:30am Wrote Slowdown episodes

12:00pm Met with arborist about the dying tree out front

1:00pm Zoomed with a graduate student

1:30pm Ate quick snack before piano lesson

2:00pm Piano Lesson

3:00pm Answered work emails

4:00pm Dropped off drycleaning & shopped for dinner

5:00pm Attended Board Finance Meeting

6:00pm Prepared dinner

7:00pm Read a bunch of literary journals

8:30pm Wrote Slowdown episode

My life is a constant stream of deadlines, such that I am forever trying to fit in what I love most — writing poetry. When I worked in the corporate finance office of a popular clothing retail store, I worked a regular 9-5. Back then, my life was more structured, and poetry bookended my days. I arose in the dark of morning and scribbled opening lines that would unfold into a larger piece. Light spread across the sky and only birdsong could be heard. I wrote on yellow-lined pads or in one of those precious, leather-bound journals purchased ceremonially from Barnes and Noble that I…never filled.

I wouldn’t move until the draft was done and often had to rush to shower, scarf down a bagel, and sprint to the subway to begin my day job on time. In front of a copier machine, after filing financial reports, and on the way to meetings, I’d recite its words to myself between work assignments. Later, arriving home, after dinner, before meeting up with friends at a local bar, I returned to the poem to fiddle some more with its lines. That daily routine suited my need for order. It isolated writing as a private, monastic activity.

I miss those days. When did writing poetry become something that I “fit in”? Trust me; I find meaning in all of my activities, work-related or domestic. But only one satiates this ongoing spirit of becoming, which is what creating is about. In that solitude, with each poem I wrote, I saw myself more clearly.

And that’s the problem with a busy life: we tend not to see ourselves through the dense stream of tasks and responsibilities. I dream of a future where I am released of time, one without hurried deadlines, one where ambition and consuming work do not blur what makes me distinctive, nor blur what’s really important to me.

Today’s poem cleverly identifies a contrasting symbol of self-possession, one of stillness worthy of imitation.

The Statues and Us
by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Martin McKinsey

The statues are so calm. The ravages of time
don’t concern them. There go their hands,
their feet, their head — but they
persevere in their original uprightness.
Even flat on their backs, they smile,
or face down in the mud they turn
their backs on us, and on Time, as if
surrendering themselves to some infinite
act of love-making, while we look on,
unaccountably tired and depressed. Later,
we go back to our shabby hotel, draw
the blinds against the afternoon glare,
and sprawl naked on the lumpy bed, emulating
the placid immobility of the statues.

							   Karlóvasi, 8-9-87

“The Statues and Us” by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Martin McKinsey from LATE INTO THE NIGHT: THE LAST POEMS OF YANNIS RITSOS © 1995 Oberlin College. Used by permission of Oberlin College Press.