I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

Walking my neighborhood, I occasionally think, someone should write about that little free library.

I adore its loosely stacked children's

fake roof tiles and colorful red doors made to look like a barn.

Further on my walk, I think that someone should compose a praise poem to the three dogs barking

behind an invisible fence. Their snarling puts me in mind of the mythic Cerberus and Hercules' 12th and final labor.

Making my way around the corner, I consider telling my friend Rick, a poet, that there's a haiku to be written in the spirit of the elderly couple conversing quietly on their front porch as the day's light goes down.

In this way, collectively, a distinct poetry of place

emerges from local details.

This is my brand of field work. Maybe we do this naturally. Mark a

perimeter of a place through what we most visibly notice, or in some cases here, all that encodes a region as

distinct. I identify the places I've lived with certain memories I most recall,

like the annual Halloween pumpkin carving contest,

or a backyard birthday party

with a huge inflatable bounce house, or in one instance, the late arrival of police

in response to a domestic conflict.

Imaginative mapping ties us to each other and we find the language to

replicate the sensation of walking the streets anew. However, it's important for us to avoid what Nobel Laureate Wole Shoyinka once

phrased as saline consciousness. That is, the belief that only what lies within our boundaries is worth noticing.

We can roam beyond our familiar provinces.

Today's poem satirizes a vision of nationhood that only sees itself in relation to the

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