TRANSCRIPT

I’m Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

Very casually, one evening, I commented on a shirt worn by a prominent professor. Saffron-colored, a beautiful kurta. The passing exchange happened on a Friday at a dinner party. My compliment was not memorable in the least. I had forgotten about it as I passed him on the way to a charcuterie board. 

That Monday, a department administrator emailed to say that Professor B. had a package awaiting me in his office. Several hours later, I was holding that very shirt in my hand, freshly dry cleaned. I was expecting a copy of his latest book. Shocked, I told the administrator that I could not. He said, “It would be offensive if you do not accept the gift.” We went back and forth. “I cannot take the shirt,” I said. While he talked, I thought of Professor B’s generosity. I thought about the huge symbolic gesture of a famed critic giving the shirt off his back to an aspiring poet. 

In my community, growing up, we purchased items to earn the praise and envy of our friends. If someone says a positive word about your gear, your car, your kicks, then mission accomplished. Both parties went on their way. As an adult, I have since learned to be careful of remarking positively on other people’s items. They might give them to you, something that would not happen in my youth.

My admiration of Professor B is thorough; he possesses a formidable intellect. I feared I would have to match his erudition in conversation each time I ran into him in the hallway. Or worse, what if surrounded by colleagues, I babbled on, and he found me unworthy of his shirt. 

Some years later, a mentor complimented me on my pen, a blue ballpoint, deliciously smooth on paper. I was in the middle of signing books after a reading. Without even looking at her, still peering down, I held the pen up in her direction, which she promptly took and put in her purse. 

Today’s whimsical poem, a minimalist list poem, meditates on the line between what we might be willing to let go and what we choose to keep for ourselves. 

things people like to share:
by Nuar Alsadir

things people like to share:

dessert     anything that could make them fat or get them in
trouble     the wait     intimate details about whoever is not present
clothing if female  &  in college       the ride home      cigarettes when
trying to quit




things people don’t like to share:

A toothbrush     even if it has not touched a mouth & only stirred
coffee     a spoon     the armrest     anything that comes in a limited
quantity or could break      friends who may then spend less time
with them      a bar of soap

“things people like to share:” by Nuar Alsadir. Used by permission of the poet.