This episode was originally released on July 31, 2023.

Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

Long ago, after a poetry event at Fergie’s Pub in Philadelphia, my father approached me to say he really enjoyed himself. He’d never attended a live reading. I thanked him and shot back my appreciation for his support.

Then, he leaned in and whispered, “My shoe size is 11, not 10.” “Excuse me?” I fumbled. “In the poem, you mention my feet.” he stated.

My stepmother looked off and took a sip of wine. I was flummoxed for a second, then realized he misconstrued the phrase “my father” in one of the poems, written as a persona, as a reference to him. How could he think otherwise? But then, how to explain the intricacies of taking on the voice of someone else? A truth revealed itself to me that day: whether I intend or not, those close to me will seek themselves out in my poems.

Early in my writing career my mother attended one of my readings...only one. She was already ill and fragile. The room at Robin's bookstore was packed, and I was nervous. She sat up front and smiled throughout to hear a world familiar to her in my poems. With her eyes closed, she rocked and smiled.

My mother did not live long enough to read my poems about her. I like to think that she would have appreciated how I processed our shared history and relationships, even the difficult moments. I like to think she’d have granted me the latitude to craft the poems I needed to write, and possibly understood that the practice of poetry is one of imagining and composing rather than simply reporting what happened. As a poet, I don't take on the role of memoirist or journalist.

And yet, many of us do write about real events that involve real people. We must be able to continue to do so, ethically. And of course, we should not want to elaborate narratives such that we unintentionally defame someone or cause harm.

Today’s poem calls out a simple but important truth: that poetry serves many functions. Because of this multiplicity, we cannot police each other’s imagination, nor each other’s capacity to make sense of our shared lives.

Letter to my sister
by Trapeta B. Mayson

I have turned our childhood into a few dozen verses;
there are places for dramatic pause,
and where memory failed,
I embellished a bit.

You’ve grown impatient with me
and so-called poetic license;
I don’t remember that
has become your weary mantra.

D,
I am learning to excavate the good times too.
Can’t you see where I’ve colored some words?
Inserted those tender moments?

A famous writer once said that eventually
I will tire of myself and will be compelled
to tell the I-less stories….I anxiously await that moment. 
But for now, I want to tell them about our war with mama’s illness
and how at school we were maimed for being foreign.

Remember D?
When they chased us up Tioga Street
and accused us of having voodoo and
scanned our dark bodies for tribal scars
and discovered the cayenne pepper we had hidden;
to throw in their faces,
to sting them,
to make them fear us,
to be left alone,
to be African.

D,
I have managed to poem all my pain;
tell me,
what do you do with yours?

“Letter to my sister” by Trapeta B. Mayson. Used by permission of the poet.