My name is Aida Nique and I financially support the slowdown because the show

allows me to understand poems on a deeper level. I love the thoughtful lead in

major provides before each poem. Join me in making a gift to the slowdown today.

Head to slowdownshow.org slash donate.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

Some of us will never forget it. Once at a poetry reading on a college campus

late afternoon like streaming through a wide tree brushed window, a member of

the audience fainted at the end of a poem read by a well-known poet. A poet whose

voice is a silk road and who is by all accounts fairly good-looking. The listener

was gently awakened, offered water and aided in finding her stability. About a

half hour later she fainted again. Her body just flopped back on her chair

then slumped onto her neighbor. Maybe she missed lunch, but it seemed as if the

poet's cadence reading triggered a fainting spell. In another instance I watched a

large room suddenly go quiet all at once when a famous writer walked into an

auditorium. Her hair shocked with the streak of white as if marking the

brilliance beneath it. She possessed a nuanced mind was one of those famous

thinkers and teachers who influenced a generation. The whole room hushed as she

undid her cape and took her seat. It was spooky. She could have read a restaurant

menu that night and the audience would have been equally transfixed. It is rarely

discussed, but great art weakens us. We become magnetized. I've stood in the

wake of a dance performance utterly speechless. Often after the last song is

played at a concert I am left wanting. I finish applauding and wish the music

...