Raw Footage of an Interview with Major Jackson for Episode of Profile

He's been called a poet of dazzling talent and rare wisdom within months of starting a new position at the University of Vermont last fall. Major Jackson had been recognized by the National Book Critics Circle and the Library of Congress UVM has a winner. Stay with us for a conversation with Major Jackson next on profile. Major Jackson was brought up in Philadelphia where he attended Temple University graduating with an accounting degree but a love of poetry had taken hold and his first job out of college was his literary arts curator and finance director of the painted broad Art Center in Philadelphia. Jackson began to be noticed as a curator and a poet. After a pew fellowship Bradlow scholarship and Pushcart Prize nomination among many others Jackson completed the University of Oregon's creative writing program and the MFA he's taught at Xavier University in New Orleans Queens University in North Carolina and now teaches poetry at the University of Vermont. His

poems have been published in many and follow Jesus and publications including the American Poetry Review and The New Yorker. His first book Leaving Saturn has received much national attention and acclaim. Jackson now lives with his wife and son and eight month old puppy and South Burlington. I couldn't resist. They're monstrous Aren't they can be. So when did you start writing poetry and know that you wanted to be a poet. That did not occur until college. I bought it. I've always had. Read poetry quite a bit of it actually. Growing up in my grandparents house only two volumes there but they had in the past. Frost A. Selected list in use. I had some electives available to me. As an undergrad and after seeing Sonia Sanchez give a reading. I decided I wanted to take some classes with her.

And. See if I could try my hand at something that I had always loved as a reader. Oh that's interesting. So you were an accounting major You were in the business school at Temple and then your senior year you you take us with us what should your first job out of there is the. Literary Arts curator and what gave you permission to pursue poetry. In that way. Right well working at the painted bright Arts Center. As an intern at my senior year allowed me to hang lights do sell and for a host of artists jazz musicians theater artists. Modern dancers as well as poets and fiction writers who were featured there during my senior year. There was something very encouraging. You can imagine my parents having a little anxiety about. My taking an interest in the arts and encouraging more towards the profession.

But being serving as a witness to. The kind of dedication that artists gave their their craft was just inspiring. So when a job opened for me the Art Center decided that it would be a perfect match I had the interest in the literary arts and also had this facility with numbers. And like most nonprofit organizations you wear. More than one had. Those were my two. I'm sure the business degree helps some because it's always so native and as you know artists think you know there's a poem that's in leaving Saturn called blondes you know you do it in the I don't even know if this if this took place but it's a poem about a young kid getting high for the first time and I'm in this you know doorway of a slum and and you are the protagonist declares to the boys that are there. I want to be a poet. And one replies. So you want to be the tongue of God. And it made me wonder how your family and your community

does react to somebody who says oh I want to be a poet. Well the great thing about writing is that you can utilize your imagination so a that did not happen. But. But. To answer the to answer the question D. For the most part yes there is some anxiety but in my own community there were. A host of artists I mean living artists who were doing well for themselves. Tony Williams who played drums for Miles Davis taught at a local high school science center has lived in my neighborhood. There was a scholar he's Tim Baker he also lived in my neighborhood. So the so there were models there and there wasn't something that was totally alien. But. But. The kind of support that. Artists receive Lissie and are revered with

a huge level of respect. My family was aware that you know we don't have that same kind of reverence here so there's obvious concerns practical concerns. Sure. Well you grew up in North Philadelphia pretty gritty neighborhood but it's also adjacent to where the Philadelphia Museum of Art is. And you had an aunt that worked there. And so you could you could go there for free at last and I did and many of your poems you cite says automotive Modigliani and I'm wondering how did that experience the art museum influence you. I did nothing. Yeah he always seems to get cool. Well what about what I get out of the summer heat and go to this huge huge air conditioned building. But it sensitize sensitize. Sensitize my eye towards environs and. And a way of seeing that's what

that's what that's I want to answer that is sensitized in to seeing the world and different ways. I did grow up in North Philadelphia but that's not to say that it did not have its own. Its own beauty. I mean the ruins the the the the vacant lots the buildings I mean I think that's been a good part of my project is to kind of find a beauty within. Those gritty neighborhoods a little but I spent my childhood down there in North Philadelphia and moved up. To Germantown so which was a kind of middle class upper middle class neighborhood. So the the differences in how people lived also sensitized me in ways and you can imagine you can imagine going into a space like an art museum. And then going back home and in the kinds of. The relief that would be for

me. You know also your father was a counsellor and therapist for a for a while and I'm wondering if that had anything to do with your. Influence your deep insensitivity into the human psyche much less this this beauty that you found in squalor. The most direct influence and actually it was it was a therm role was to play as doing a conversation that he and I had while I was on a fellowship and had returned to Philadelphia. We would get together and play chess on Mondays. And he kind of knew what I was doing in my writing but not really. So just before a game he saw some papers on my desk. And had inquired as to. How did I begin to pour you know what was that process like. And I talked for a few minutes and then he. Proceeded to share with me an exercise that he gives his current to do which

was I won't go into much detail about A but his aim was to get them the seeing the kinds of emotional impact that their actions would have won the people around them. And he drew up this grid and it was it wasn't elaborate but it was. It was a gift in a sense. Something that I still use today. His awareness of how the psyche works and the psychology of human beings wasn't something that I gave much thought to but in my later years I have begun to think about the model. How he modeled his life for me. That kind of intense reflection on our lives rather than having been in another profession. I'm not sure if he would would have been as reflective. Right. I was going to have you read another poem at this time but after talking about your dad you know I

think we just have to read how to listen how to listen which you've also. Said has been used at the beginning of some psychologists already thrice ready. That's right. Yes that's right I was at a. At the job in our Dodge Poetry Festival and I was. Absolutely floored when a gentleman came up to thank me for writing this poem because he opens up his group therapy sessions with this poem and it says to me. That while composing we cannot as poets even begin to fathom our audience and how our work might might be used out in the world so that was pretty gratifying at that moment you know how to listen. I am going to cut my head tonight like a dog in front of McGlynn cheese Tavern on Locust. I am going to stand beside the man who works all day combing his that have gray hair corkscrewed in every direction.

I'm going to pay attention to our lives unraveling between the forks of his fine tooth comb for once. We won't talk about the end of the world or Vietnam or his exquisite paper shoes. For once I am going to ignore the profanity and the dancing in the jukebox so I can hear his head crackle beneath the sky stretch of faint stars. You know. I like to talk about presenting poetry and. Performing poetry is hot now and you're a wonderful reader clearly and there's also and you've published there's that. Is there a distinction for you between reading. Performing and what does that mean that you don't. Well in both cases more so on the page then an oral presentation. I believe that some performance has to

happen on the page and a reader is more inclined to. Pick up and be moved by that performed by that performance on the page than they are. For oral presentation I think mainly because we are so cute and so our air is aware we know what to expect in the reading. My son has a. Has a particular aversion to the kind of reading the kind of drone that happens during. A poetry reading. I myself. I'm. Trying to. Trying to more in that that performance on the page when I write. I think I believe. Because. Right now. Poetry has such a place in our. Cultural consciousness and and in our lives that it's even more important that we stay.

Remain aware of the possibilities of language and the pleasures that they afford in the and. Our private moments. So you you are really working language to be. The performance itself. That's right. And two and two I see right to be performative but also to approach the condition of music I think and I think our eyes can detect in our bodies and feel that performance happening on the page. If it approximate and gets at the core of what language can and can do you know even if we may not be aware of its particular meaning. We do know that something is happening on the page and that can be at the level of sound it can be at the level of type graffiti on the page. At the level of movement the rhythm is kinds of cadence that. Happens on the page. Yes pretty.

And stunning. Yeah complex. You've been a curator of literary arts both in Oregon and in Philadelphia. Obviously what are you trying to achieve. Am I reading or a series of reading. Let's see. I have many agendas. I think it's important that we. Assert poetry and that when I was doing it it was just beginning. The whole idea. Of what people call a resurgence importation which is poetry being part of our cultural offerings on a weekend or. Or a week night and I think that's one of my doing this is to somehow contribute to that but I also think that the that the writing and that the poet themselves offer up. Something that is meaningful in our lives so often I would turn to writers who had something to say writers who either

engaged our political lives or our our personal emotional lives. I think there is a trend in writing for taking poetry writing to be empty poetical to somehow move away from meaning move away from song move away from what we understand this poetry so that was one of my one of my agendas. It takes me to an essay that you wrote mainly about Michael Weaver where you're writing about actually the political posturing of the black arts movements of the of the early 90s when when you were doing a lot of this work you know that kind of that the need to express rage and self determination these things are very important. But his poetry you feel this vulnerability and beauty. Why was that such a revelation. Because there was a moment where in. Particular when I when I first heard and read I hadn't. Had not yet been introduced to

his work or his books. But there was something. It was the first time in which the poetry didn't seem to be overwhelmed by the message or the rhetoric. And that's the balance that good writers particularly who want to engage our political lives. Have to achieve they have to be able to make sure that they are speaking as real human beings and that the message somehow still pushes through and I believe to be vulnerable to be sensitive. Can be political in of itself. And he he made me aware of that. You want something you really need you. You consume art and at times you just want something new and that was that's what he offered. For me at that moment in my life. Well it certainly seems that you've embraced that I'm here after a number of years of curating and in Philadelphia you go to graduate school you immerse

yourself in these other places you go from the urban environment you go out west and you're in Oregon and then you take a position down in New Orleans and you're down there and you've been doing some teaching in North Carolina and then you take this position at the University of Vermont so now you know you have a wing Glenn what is this geographical exploration all about. Why my experiences to well what why and the pilot. Experience I think it's important for my work to be able to. Encounter people different from me to encounter landscapes different from the one I grew up in. There's something about the contrasts. That happens in my mind and my consciousness when I think about the sea highway in Kansas or the flat plains in Big Sky Kansas. Right behind or maybe in front of. Me.

Street full of row homes in which there's a bunch of kids playing there is to be able to connect those two and find out what's important about those different areas is something that I enjoy very much about. About writing. Do you think you know you might stay in this very diversified corner of the world where there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of racism. And do you think. I mean are you are you here to stay for a little while. Oh I am and I definitely encountered. Oh well no it's not I don't think it's ok anywhere. I think I believe diversity and and coming to understand who we are as human beings is something that's ongoing and constant in every corner of this particular country. So I've already had experiences here but I'm undeterred and I

refuse just as I had in Oregon as I had and the wall is undeterred I refused to have my. Movement in a world be to be dictated by. Ignorance of some kind. And I also feel like I can contribute. I mean let me sell. I think it sounds right yeah. Thank you. And we're fortunate for however you however long you choose to be here actually in the last two months. You've also you've been traveling a lot because you've been attending these places that are honoring you know the National Book Critics Circle Awards. You were at a dinner I think in in February and then you just got back from the Library of Congress where you read for the Witter Bynner fellow Witter Byner fellowship. Which is just one out of two people incredible. A couple of months for you. Does that. Just put the pressure on or does it affirm what you're doing.

To some extent. It is mostly however. It's affirmation and it kind of gives me a sigh of relief that. What I have been vision for myself to statically my subjects is somehow making a connection out in the world and and it's been deemed important. But I have to. To some extent. Forget about all of that when I write and hopefully. It will not impact what I choose to write nor will it impact. The directions that I want my work to go. I mean if I decide for example not to write about urban environments or the hood of growing up that somehow there's still a readership in every writer has to risk losing their audience or losing the readership by changing so that to some extent I can I can.

Think about I have to. Acknowledge it you know thank everyone and move on right now. So I mean is there a risk if you if you write about say something in Vermont. Because people are expecting Oh you're sure to write about you know what your Delafield and that's what this is this is about right. Right. That's. That's a shame because the talent is there would love to see it but let's go back to North Philadelphia sure for a moment because I mean this is a beautiful I mothered beautiful poem from of course leaving Saturn. You know I don't know I think what Mr. pates barbershops shot. Glasses. Mr. Paine's Barbershop. I remember the room in which he held the blade to my neck and scrape the dark hair as forest in a jar lined stacks of Ebony's and yet clippings of black boxers. Joe Fraser Jimmy Young Jack Johnson the color television bolted to a ceiling like the one I watched all night in a waiting room at St. Joe's

while my cousin recovered from gunshots. I remember the old Coke machine a water fountain by the door how I drank the summer of 88. Over and over from a paper cone Cup and still cannot quench my thirst for this was the year. Funeral homes boom. The year Mr. Pate swept his own shop for yet lost his best little helper squeaky to CROSSFIRE. He suffered like most barbarous suffered quietly his clippers humming so loud he forgot Ali's lightning left jab his love for Engels for carpentry for baseball. He forgot everything and would never be the same. I remember the way the bully gleen fierce in the fading light of dusk and the reflection of myself pinned inside the razors and wondering if I could lay down my pin. Close up my ledgers in my journals if I could undo my tie and take up barbering. We're months on in a child's head would darken

at my feet and bring with it the uncertainty of tomorrow. Or like Mr Pate gathering clumps of fallen here at the end of a day in short delicate whisk as though they were the fine findings of gold dust he deposit in a jar and place on the shelf only to return Saturdays collecting as an antique dealer collects growing tired but never forgetting. Someone has to cherish these tiny little heads. Rush so. Back to your father's question. How do you start a poem you have this wonderful man we see in this poem and another man that we see and how to listen. Is it. Is it those people or is that something is that a word in a phrase. How do you think our memory and memory is always either a memory of a sound or a memory of a particular person. That's where

it begins for me in this particular case the memory was. Leaving North Philadelphia to go to college and returning home. This was this was a barber. In my neighborhood and there was a moment in which I would visit him and he would tell the story of some. Kid that I grew up with some tragic story either they were incarcerated or have been shot or tragically killed. And I just remember each visit his demeanor. Changing. Obviously a kind of sadness and the rose tenor about him and. What was what struck me was that and this is where the pour really begins we had this. Rumor as kids that he used to collect the hairs. Of little boys and save it you know he never threw it away at the swept it out.

And there was something very you know you would think was there something very strange about that. But. I just remember those two things in tandem and that's where the pawn kind of took off and wanted to suggest that there was really a belt holding on holding on to some vestige of these little kids. Who don't want to grow up. You know it's beautiful. It's just we're almost out of time work work habits how do you keep traveling teaching and focus on your work. Of late. I have been. I've carved out time for myself. Which was so unlike my life prior to University of Vermont. I mean prior to having a book whenever the Muse struck me. Is now you've got to carve it out and now I have time. That's right and it's been it's been good and can be done. Sorry we're all out of time. Wonderful to have you here. We hope these days for many many many years a decade. Major Jackson great to have you here.

And thank you for being with us on probably. What. We are.