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Members of MPR and supporters of The Slowdown came together in mid-October to celebrate poetry with Major Jackson. The poet was in the Twin Cities 

to speak at the Twin Cities Book Festival

 — a daily poetry podcast that he hosts — had won the prestigious Signal Award for 

MPR News' Kerri Miller in Conversation with The Slowdown's Major Jackson

It was on that jubilant note that he spoke with host Kerri Miller about his love for the art form of words. In the past, he has said that he finds “the writing of a poem a kind of plunging, a willful dive below the surface of who I am.”

The Slowdown with Major Jackson

Love Poem, with Birds

Failed Essay on Privilege

Invented Landscape

Forestbathing (or Trees)

I Have No Idea What's Going to Happen

During their conversation, Jackson explored those ideas with Miller. He spoke about how to avoid 

 when writing poetry, how his childhood faith taught him the musicality of words and why it’s crucial that poetry be a mode of inquiry, not a collection of answers. 

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At an event for MPR members earlier this fall, poet Major Jackson, host of APM’s daily poetry podcast The Slowdown, told host Kerri Miller that writing poetry is a physical, sometimes even violent, experience. Listen to their whole conversation.

Poet Major Jackson on writing poetry that connects

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