Transcript

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 light 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 half an 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 cadenced 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 a 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 would play on and on. When the lights slowly rise in a movie theater, I blink and look around for witnesses who equally experienced this wizardry. Sometimes I sit in my seat long after in wonderment at the ending plot line while the staff sweeps each row of its dropped corn kernels and tossed candy wrappers.

Today’s poem cautions us to the bewitching, yet striking, perfection of art and beauty. We are susceptible to its magic, and even sometimes, to the magic of its maker.

Sorcery
by Jessica Hagedorn

there are some people i know
whose beauty
is a crime.
who make you so crazy
you don’t know
whether to throw yourself
at them 
or kill them.
which makes 
for permanent madness.
which could be 
bad for you.
you better be on the lookout
for such circumstances.

stay away
from the night.
they most likely lurk
in corners of the room
where they think
they being inconspicuous
but they so beautiful
an aura 
gives them away.

stay away
from the day.
they most likely
be walking
down the street
when you least
expect it
trying to look
ordinary
but they so fine
they break your heart
by making you dream
of other possibilities.

stay away
from crazy music.
they most likely
be creating it.
cuz when you’re that beautiful
you can’t help 
putting it out there.
everyone knows
how dangerous
that can get.

stay away
from magic shows.
especially those 
involving words.
words are very 
tricky things. 
everyone knows
words
the most common
instruments of 
illusion.

they most likely
be saying them,
breathing poems
so rhythmic 
you can’t help
but dance.
and once
you start dancing
to words
you might never
stop.

“Sorcery” by Jessica Hagedorn from DANGER AND BEAUTY, copyright © 1993 Jessica Hagedorn, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.