I'm Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

Publishing a book is a big deal.

I love to shout out such winds.

I recently expressed my excitement to a friend

about seeing their poetry collection in the window of a favorite bookstore of mine.

They shrugged their shoulders.

They said they could not celebrate.

While observing so much pain and division in the world this past year,

armed conflicts and electoral rhetoric swallowed up any sense of joy and purpose.

This fall, I attended several book festivals. Some authors acknowledged wars on multiple

continents, and others did not, which is their choice. Some privately complained about

widespread indifference among attendees, and others thought the occasion was co-opted by

political posturing. What is utterly complicated about our moment is the widening circle of sorrow,

the encompassing feeling that something is not right in the world. To name it, causes rancor among family,

and quite possibly condemnation from friends.

Then again, much of the world goes on with this business,

continues unabated.

The barista makes coffee.

The bus driver stops along a route and we board. A professor lectures on the history of empire. Many carry grief inside of them, and others have a passing thought about hostages and the large toll on human life in countries thousands of miles away.

Poetry holds that place of both awakening and frustration,

of perseverance against unimaginable violence and the flight away from the pains of our fragile world.

Someday the bombs will stop falling.

...