Major Jackson — Blunts

Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

Relationships, Society & Culture, Spirituality, Arts, Religion & Spirituality, Books

4.9 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2021

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Some friends gather and smoke at a doorway in a city. There’s Malik, and Johnny Cash, and Lefty, and Jësus. And the poet, Major Jackson. They’ve known each other their whole lives, and they wonder who they’ll turn out to be. In a moment of disclosure, Major tells his friends he wants to be a poet, astonishing them, and himself too it seems. In friendship and ribbing, in desire and teasing, this poem wonders who a person is, and what it means to hope.

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Podrigotouma and I'm not sure when I thought to myself I want to be a poet.
0:07.9	I know I was writing poetry from the age of 11.
0:10.3	My sister found an early poem that I'd written and she edited it and corrected it and said
0:14.8	to me, you're not bad, which was about as much of a compliment as I could have taken.
0:19.1	I kept on writing poems and carrying them around with me throughout all my teens and
0:22.9	twenties.
0:23.9	They were necessary for me, but I rarely showed them to anyone because I read all for them
0:28.5	like some kind of mirrorer confirmation about who I could be.
0:32.4	It came later on that I thought that I might be able to share them.
0:35.5	Blunts by Major Jackson
0:47.0	The first time I got high, I stood in a circle of boys at 23rd and Ridge, tucked inside
0:56.0	a doorway that smelled of urine.
0:58.7	It was March, the cold rains all but blurred our sight as we feigned sophistication, passing
1:05.3	a bullet-shaped bottle of malt.
1:08.2	Johnny Cash had a love for transcendental numbers and explained between puffs resembling
1:14.2	little gasps of air.
1:15.9	The link to all creation was the mathematician.
1:19.9	Malik, the smartest of the crew, counter- argued, and cited the holy life of prayer as a gateway
1:26.4	to the Islamic faith that was for all intents the true path for the righteous black man.
1:33.2	No one disputed.
1:34.5	Malik cocked his head, pinched the joint and pulled so hard we imagined his lips crazy glued
1:41.2	into stiff ores.
	...

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