TRANSCRIPT

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

Dear Listener,

With great honor and pride, I am announcing that my last episode as host will release on April 11th, 2025.  

Since 2018, The Slowdown has been a part of your daily ritual and listening routine. We will be back with a new host very soon. Until then, The Slowdown team will share episodes from the archive going back to the very beginning.  

From its initial launch, The Slowdown has remained a consistent space to reflect, to remain present, even as the world rapidly changed around us. 

Now more than ever, The Slowdown will continue to be an instrument of compassion. We will continue to cultivate a deep appreciation for the richness of our humanity, for the many voices and perspectives that enliven and give shape to our communities. 

Each week, I felt like the friend who walked into your home with an armful of gifts. I love how poetry has us adjust to each other, how we make room inside ourselves for the words of our neighbors, near and far. 

I want to thank you for listening to my meditations and my stories. And even more, for writing us at The Slowdown whenever a poem or reflection moved you. 

Through poetry, we flex a spiritual muscle that bolsters our resilience and fortitude. I want to thank those poets whose gifts and passion for language is nothing less than inspiring and uplifting. I have tremendous hope for our future. 

As do the brilliant team of producers, editors, and executives of The Slowdown. They work hard to bring light to our world. I want to especially shoutout dear Myka Kielbon, Maria Württele, James Napoli, and our many interns. 

Serving as host of the Slowdown and your colleague ranks among the greatest honors of my life as a poet and citizen of our beloved community. And to Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith, thank you enormously for the opportunity to steward poetry each morning into the lives of many.

I am signing off; but you’ll hear more exciting news ahead. For now, I will be off to make soup and take long bike rides.

Today’s poem is one of Major’s own — a chorus of relished realities, brought to you in a chorus of voices. 

Why I Write Poetry
by Major Jackson

Because my son is as old as the stars
Because I have no blessings
Because I hold tangerines like orange tennis balls
Because I sit alone and welcome morning across
                the unshaved jaws of my lawn
Because the houses on my street sleep like turtles
Because the proper weight of beauty was her eyes
                last night beneath my eyes
Because the red goblet from which I drank
                made even water a Faustian toast
Because radishes should be banned, little pellets that they are
Because someone says it’s late and begins to rise from a chair
Because a single drop of rain is hope for the thirsty
Because life is ordinary unless you plan
                and set in motion a war
Because I have not thanked enough
Because my lips moisten whenever I hear Mingus’s 
                “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”
Because I’ve said the word dumbfuck too many times in my life
Because I plant winter vegetables in July
Because I could say the morning died like candle wax
                and no one would question its truth
Because I relished being sent into the coatroom
                in third grade where alone, I would turn off the light
                and run my hands over my classmates’ coats
                as if playing tag with their bodies
Because once I shoplifted a pair of Hawaiian shorts 
                and was caught at the Gallery Mall. 
Because soup reminds me of the warmth
                of my grandmother and old aunts
Because the long coast of my dreams is filled
                with saxophones and poems
Because somewhere someone is buying a Rolex or a Piaget
Because I wish I could speak three different languages
                but I have to settle for the language of business and commerce
Because I used to wear paisley shirts and herringbone sports jackets
Because I better git in my soul
Because my grandfather loved clean syntax,
                cologne, Stacy Adams shoes, Irish tweed caps,
                and women, but not necessarily in that order
Because I think the elderly are sexy
                and the young are naïve and brutish
Because a vision of trees only comes to 
                wise women and men who can fix old watches
Because I write with a pen whose supply of ink comes from the sea
Because gardens are fun to visit in the evenings
                when everyone has put away their coats and swords
Because I still do not eat corporate French fries or rhubarb jam
Because punctuation is my jury and the moon is my judge
Because my best friend in fourth grade chased 
                city buses from corner to corner
Because his cousin’s father could not stop looking 
                up at the sky after his return from the war
Because parataxis is just another way of making ends meet
Because I have been on a steady diet of words
                since the age of three.

“Why I Write Poetry” by Major Jackson from RAZZLE DAZZLE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 2002-2022 copyright © 2023 by Major Jackson. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company.