929: this is a library

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2023

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s poem is this is a library by Asiya Wadud.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s empathetic poem, which takes the tone of an elementary school primer, encourages a greater noticing of those who are leastwise among us, who fall outside the social fabric of our care. In doing so, hopefully, we might reverse prevailing attitudes toward the unhoused, who often are the target of violence and intolerance.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.
0:20.0	Last year, as part of a summer writers conference in California, I gave a poetry reading in
0:26.3	an outdoor pavilion at a community college.
0:30.2	Afterward, I signed books and talked with attendees from senior citizens to high school
0:36.2	students.
0:38.0	Everyone was in good spirits.
0:41.0	So it was during this post-event reverie that I placed my iPad on the ground near my
0:47.2	feet at the signing table and forgot about it.
0:53.4	Hopefully the next morning, I recalled my blunder and returned to the location.
0:58.5	A slight dew covered the empty white chairs and stage.
1:03.4	No iPad.
1:05.5	I called campus police, hoping someone turned it in.
1:09.7	Still, no iPad.
1:12.3	Instead, I filed a report.
1:16.2	After my morning workshop, I opened the Find My Device app on my phone.
1:22.2	Sure enough, the iPad showed its blue dot in a nearby community off a walking trail
1:28.9	just a mile away.
1:31.1	I hit play sound when found.
1:35.8	I followed the path on foot.
1:38.0	As I walked closer, a cluster of tents and blue tarps came into view.
1:44.0	Then structures of cardboard and discarded wood, piles of clothing and bike parts littered
1:50.5	in expanse of dirt mounds.
	...

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