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

Poetry propels us to new places, physical and of the mind,

but also towards new human beings. I love stumbling upon poems written by someone

whom I've never read before, never met truly a new voice. As readers of poetry,

we get to engage with and listen to the mind of a poet who, in the normal course of a day,

we might not casually encounter. For this reason, I treasure the anonymity of the page.

We meet the speaker in the poem on their own terms without any preconceived notions.

In curating poems for the Slowdown, the great wealth of humanity reveals itself.

How limited my own perspective would be if I were to read only poetry that merely reflected

my worldview and identity? I've engaged in many discussions about the role of poetry,

and have asked, what if poetry's ultimate function is to apprise us of the connection

and interdependent of all life? What if language attunes us to not just ourselves

and our feelings and thoughts, but the collective merging of humanity and the natural world?

What if the poem is a collapsing of the great chain of being and other hierarchies and supremacists

notions that have so damaged our sense of ourselves and others? If so, then the craft of the

poem physically reassembles who we are. The meter or the cadence of a poem modulates our breathing

as a form of transfiguration. A line break becomes emblematic of our emotional and physical

breaking, where our heart and body open to the possibilities of restoration and bonding.

Today's compelling poem, Models Beingness, by discarding the poetry notion of time and an

individuated selfhood disconnected from life. The poem advocates for the knowledge that poetry

distinctly brings, that we are living and dying at once. Its innovative empathy helps us carry

forward a sense of care, responsibility, and stewardship, both of the planet and of each other.

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