Hey, it's Major. What poems have you wanted to send to a friend or a loved one to help them slow down?

We want you to send us your selections for a series of upcoming episodes.

Head to slowdown show.org slash community to submit

or head to our Instagram at Slowdown Show to learn more.

I'm Major Jackson and this is...

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. Why is it so hard to write a love poem?

Well, I think sentimentality is often the culprit.

Often in love poems, language doesn't rise to the occasion of feeling,

and leaves emotion as an idea, an abstract notion rather than a felt experience.

So if I attempt a Petrarchan sonnet, I've already submitted to a tradition in which the act of writing about

unrequited love is more important than me telling my beloved how awesome she is.

The artifice of the poem supersedes the intention.

Maybe two.

Those of us who dare climb this mountain also possess a false belief that our heartfelt emotions are distinctive.

If nothing else, they are more about the self rather than the beloved.

Fatedly, Petrarch fell in love with a married woman,

Laura Deside, on Good Friday.

He took the revelation of his muse at St. Clair's Church and Avignon as a sign that

God was leading his soul. Most of the poems are about, well, him.

And my heart trembles with a storm of size

when on your beauty bend my burning eyes.

They are all about his ability to fit. been my burning eyes.

...