Echrasses means description in Greek, but when poets undertake

Echfrasas we're talking about art and more than that we're making poems that

not only describe art, they tap deep into the work of artists to ask bigger questions about our languages and our experiences in the world.

This week's episodes are all in conversation with art,

and those magnificent poems on art.

They are only possible through the work of the institutions that care for,

share, and support the work of artists. We encourage you too to visit and support these museums, galleries, and art spaces. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

A decade ago, in the Vatican museums in Rome,

I stood among paintings I had only viewed in books and movies.

That same trip, I also toured the Borghese Gallery Gallery and the Pantheon, which is to say, my sight scene was

scripted from the moment I landed in Rome's Fumacino Airport.

Literally, hundreds of millions of feet walked the same Cabot streets every week.

As many eyes set upon the same works of art.

Still. set upon the same works of art. Still, I was astounded to find myself taking in Raphael's school of Athens painting. The mythology surrounding the art superseded my real life experience.

I recall a person staring up at the Sistine Chapel in tears.

I shared their awe in what felt like a pilgrimage to

see God's finger almost touching Adam's finger. I enjoyed my tour, but I also remember being pushed along by throngs of tourists behind me.

I remember the exhaustion that set in at the end of my touristy day.

Yet, too, my feelings of gratitude at seeing art held as the pinnacle of humankind's imagination.

I did not spend as much time as I'd like relishing Michelangelo's David

nor distilled motion of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne.

...