In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • from The Dadaab Suite
  • Major Jackson (bio)

IX.

So this, the colonial's last dance, palms to greased palm.What is the statute of limitation on compassion fatigue?The foxtrot of the earthy wretched is not seen on the cluster bombof CNN in a five-star room, but real time suffering, a leagueof human devastation. It took us fifteen days. We hadto keep to the bush. Text back the fact of flattenedbellies, not a flat-screen for miles. We carry our iPadslike holy texts, our secular paths fattenedby the catastrophe of progress. All gaga all the time.Wrecked at the border. Rapt at the border. Rape at the border.If a rape whistle is blown in an African desert like a war crime,and the whole world hears it, does it make a sound? Orderanother round of eye-plugs for those dry eyes.A dark sky paints no shadow, and one cannot findglobal rage in the leaf-foam on a venti latte. Hunger defiesthe age of binary codes, even more to the barbarian mind. [End Page 578]

VII. USA

When your twig hut is covered over with oiltin labels from the USA, you've got some seriousswag, your dreams are the dreams of Texans,inside no one knows the blues rippling across your forehead,your interior smells like the beaches of Long Island.When you step out your hut, the desert sand is a runwayof fashion in L.A., your hunger turns into excess, you are fullerthan an obese kid high on a food-bowl,your door is like the backstage of a rock concert,your window sees all the way to the Empire State building,relatives on the block are jealous of your glitter,of your home décor bling. You are the democratic ideal.You are protected from all manner of harm: your sinsare forgiven. Fresh water springs from your own pipeline.When your twig hut is covered with oil tin labels from the USA,you begin to fear your neighbor, your greed outstrips your greed,you are your own reality show, your individuality isconstipated, you want what others have, and don't have,you telecast a trauma bright as olive oil.But at least you have pride oozing all over your face. [End Page 579]

Major Jackson

Major Jackson is author of three collections of poetry: Holding Company (Norton, 2010), Hoops (Norton, 2006), and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of a Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Holding Company and Hoops were finalists for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literature—Poetry. He is a recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and a Pushcart Prize, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He served as a creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and as the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. He has taught at New York University, Columbia University, and Baruch College. Major Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at University of Vermont and a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars.

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