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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

1197: March, the Garden by Chera Hammons

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is March, the Garden by Chera Hammons


The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “People often ask me: can poetry be taught? As if there is a playbook for writing poetry, guidelines, and steps. I believe writing poetry, like gardening, is a gradual accumulation of instinctive habits: observing, tending, and nourishing one’s talent and imagination. Today’s poem sees the garden as a barometer of our changing climate and of our inner lives.”


Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, it's Major. The best way to support the slowdown is with a monthly gift.

0:06.7

Show your love for the slowdown and help us plan for the future today at slowdown show

0:12.8

dot org slash donate.

0:15.4

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. Last year some friends and I walked my neighborhood's garden tour. We marveled at lush beds of

0:43.8

salvia, pathways of Gardenia, rose-covered terraces,

0:48.9

all of it inspiring, but grossly deceptive.

0:53.6

I thought, I can do this.

0:57.1

I do not have a green thumb to speak of.

0:59.8

Still, I went wild in a nursery. I placed whatever was colourful into my cart, cone flowers, hydrangea, lavender, longwood blue.

1:12.1

At first, not much happened. Several plantings

1:16.9

withered. The bee balm got waylaid by powdery mildew. I didn't even know what powdery mildew was until after this let down.

1:28.0

These beautiful stalks of red spiky flowers that belonged on the set of Jurassic Park suddenly dropped in bunches.

1:36.4

I tried to rescue them with stakes and string, but no doing.

1:41.4

They just flopped. My garden has lutu shade, all of it took a beating from the summer heat.

1:49.1

I had ludu knowledge of garden zones, dead heading, or even the benefits of watering at night versus watering in the morning,

1:59.3

is clear that I am a beginner.

2:02.3

But I am learning, and the bees are now coming to the garden.

2:08.4

People often ask me, can poetry be taught, as if there is a playbook for writing poetry,

2:16.0

guidelines, and steps.

2:18.0

I believe writing poetry, like gardening,

2:22.0

is a gradual accumulation of instinctive habits, observing, tending,

2:29.2

and nourishing one's talent and

...

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