I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

Last spring, my graduate students and I propped my cell phone on the ledge of a whiteboard at the front of a class.

And with flutes of champagne in hand, we took a timed selfie. The occasion for the picture was a celebration of my 25

years of teaching in a university classroom. I never factored a career in education as part of my quarter century life plan.

I had my sights on the upper floors of a corporate office in a glass tower overlooking a major U.S. city.

By my estimation, I've taught approximately 1,500 students.

Red and discussed 6,000 original poems,

spent 3,000 hours lecturing,

guided 50 graduate theses, and written at least 150 letters of recommendations.

But Impact isn't measured by numbers alone.

I'm proud of the students who have gone on to publish books and those

who themselves now support a generation of aspiring writers to find value and worth, as Socrates phrased it, in an examined life.

Truth is, I gain as much, if not more, for my students as I believe they receive from me.

Sometimes, a truly breathtaking poem lands on my desk, and I am utterly grateful for the miracle of language.

A student writing about her developmentally disabled uncle and his heartbreaking kindness, a mother who emotionally wrestles with the challenges and joys of raising a transgender daughter.

The pitch of awe, fear and love expressed baldly by my less reticent students have encouraged

me to explore greater depths of vulnerability and courage,

to not hide behind the artifice of a poem, to mean what I say.

What I've learned over the past 25 years

is that everyone yearns to understand themselves

in the world around them,

...