I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

Several years ago, I attended the celebration for a retiring colleague at Vanderbilt University. Professor Horton Spiller's essays on American literature are some of the most cited.

Her writings on Zora Nill Hurston, William Faulkner, and Tony Morrison

have influenced several generations of literary scholars across the globe.

Many were in attendance. I was moved to hear of the impact of her essays and the testimonials of how she interrogates black culture, gender,

and racism, often through rigorous psycho-analytic and post-structuralist methods.

My words here do not capture the spirit of her scholarship,

born out of love and a richness of mind. Nor do they capture the essence of the

gathering. As each distinguished professor expressed their full-throated gratitude, the audience laughed and cried.

All the while Hortense listened and nodded. I wondered why don't we celebrate

scholars and thinkers more and publicly? Despite the attacks on academic institutions, despite the diminishing power of free inquiry,

scholarly work benefits us all. So much critical inquiry is born out of wonder and

curiosity like a crackling in the soul. Curiosity leads to exploration and research. This in turn results in

substantive contributions that are, to use her words, their own vocabulary of feeling.

I look forward to reading the compilation of speeches known as a festriff that will emerge out of Professor Spiller's retirement celebration.

What saddens me about the culture wars and the politicization of academia is the inadvertent

defaming of thousands of brilliant people who gave shape to American letters.

Today's poem posthumously celebrates another one of those pioneering scholars of African-American

women's literature.

Here, the poet fittingly elegizes their colleague

with a masterful blues form.

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