By Maria Browning
Major Jackson believes in the sacred practice of bringing together poets, poems and people. His most recent book, Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002鈥�2020, was praised by Publishers Weekly for the poems鈥� 鈥渋nsight and warmth鈥� and Jackson鈥檚 鈥渃apacious poetic world.鈥� The New York Times described Razzle Dazzle as a 鈥渘utritionally dense smorgasbord.鈥�
The culinary metaphor is apt; Jackson sees poetry as an art best appreciated in communion with others and approached through the senses as much as the intellect. He believes deeply in the power of poetry to break down barriers and foster understanding. His former podcast, The Slowdown, encourages listeners to put aside their hectic routines to listen to a poem and a brief reflection every weekday.
In his long career as a writer and teacher, Jackson has shared poems with a wide range of people鈥攎any of them new to poetry or uncertain about how best to approach it. Though he acknowledges that our interaction with poetry is 鈥渉ighly subjective, highly personal,鈥� he has suggestions for how all of us can enrich our experience of the art.
FEEL POETRY IN YOUR BODY
Jackson stresses that the experience of poetry is fundamentally physical, whether we鈥檙e hearing a poem recited aloud or in the mind鈥檚 ear while we read. Poems, he says, 鈥渢ake us back to when we first learned language: how words felt in the mouth to speak.鈥� He cites the late poet Donald Hall on our inborn response to sound. 鈥淗all writes about how poetry even speaks to that innate sense of rhythm we have. When we鈥檙e in our baby carriages and our parents lean over and sing to us and we start kicking, our body starts moving鈥攚hen you see little kids responding to that music, [poetry] is entering the body.鈥�
鈥淭o experience a poem,鈥� Jackson says, 鈥渋s also to be sensitive to moments where the poet breathes: the line breaks, the punctuations, the pauses more obscurely known in English classes as caesura. Those moments of pause help us to modulate our own breathing. I always say to students, if you really want to experience a poem, memorize it and then walk while you鈥檙e reciting it because both that walking and that reciting become a way to have it enter into your body.鈥�
DON’T FOCUS TOO MUCH ON ANALYSIS
Given poetry鈥檚 lyrical and oblique nature, it can be tempting to treat poems as puzzles to be solved, but Jackson feels this approach risks missing the point. 鈥淎 poem is less about its appeal to our intellect, although that鈥檚 an important part of it,鈥� he says. The key is 鈥渉ow it appeals to our heart and our sense of truth and emotion.鈥� He quotes English poet John Keats, who spoke of 鈥渋rritable reaching after fact and reason.鈥� When we put aside 鈥渢hat desire to nail down the poem for what it wants to say to us,鈥� Jackson says, we鈥檙e able to 鈥渙pen up pathways for the poem to do its work. If you do not demand of a poem any particular meaning, then what鈥檚 going to come through is the sounds, the nuances of speech and an attention to rhythm. I know a poem is good not by what it says, but by how it makes me feel and react.鈥�
鈥淧oetry requires three things: the poet, the poem, and the people. That is almost a holy trinity in itself.鈥�
SHARE POEMS WITH OTHERS
鈥淚鈥檝e committed so much of my life to creating platforms or organizing readings,鈥� Jackson says, 鈥渂ecause I think it鈥檚 one of the most sacred means by which we come to learn who our neighbor is or how they experience the world. I know that when I hear a poem written by someone for whom I don鈥檛 share their phenotype or don鈥檛 belong to their demographic, I鈥檓 somehow made more aware of the width and expansiveness of humanity, a perspective I鈥檓 so grateful for.鈥�
Jackson quotes the Black Arts Movement poet Etheridge Knight, who said, 鈥淧oetry requires three things: the poet, the poem, and the people.鈥�
鈥淭hat is almost a holy trinity in itself,鈥� Jackson says. 鈥淭he poem is mediating the relationship between the people and the poet. That is a connection that places a very important weight on the poem. It鈥檚 a formidable art for that reason.鈥�
DEVELOP YOUR OWN COLLECTION OF DESERT ISLAND POEMS
Jackson advises having a few essential poems committed to memory. He notes that Yusef Komunyakaa鈥檚 poem 鈥淰enus鈥檚 Flytraps鈥� is one he returns to often, calling it one of his 鈥渄esert island鈥� poems. His other favorites include Robert Duncan鈥檚 鈥淥ften I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow,鈥� Robert Frost鈥檚 鈥淏irches鈥� and 鈥渨on鈥檛 you celebrate with me鈥� by Lucille Clifton. 鈥淭hese poems live in me,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e sustaining. I think all of us need some sort of lifelines from poems to carry us into our day and into new realities. The need for consoling words, consoling metaphors, consoling rhythms is abiding for all of us.鈥�
DON’T BE AFRAID TO LOVE THE POEMS YOU LOVE
Though many people are self-conscious about their taste in poetry, Jackson believes we should always embrace what moves us. 鈥淧eople feel pressure to perform a certain kind of intelligence around poetry or achieve a level of high literacy,鈥� he says, but he notes that accessible forms like slam and Instagram poetry offer important sustenance. 鈥淔or me, it鈥檚 all gateway drugs or gateway food that鈥檚 going to whet the appetite of someone who says 鈥業 needed to hear those words. I needed to read those words at this moment in my life.鈥� We do not need to feel any shame around it. It鈥檚 all meaningful at some level because it鈥檚 emerging from a human being.鈥�