What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tradition
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Poetry (2019)Jericho Brown’s daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown’s poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we’ve become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive. Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning clarity by Brown’s mastery, and his invention of the duplex―a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues―testament to his formal skill. The Tradition is a cutting and necessary collection, relentless in its quest for survival while revelling in a celebration of contradiction.
77 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2019
About the author
Jericho Brown
36 books575 followersJericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Dillard University. The recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown teaches at the University of San Diego where he is the Director of the Cropper Center for Creative Writing. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, Oxford American, A Public Space, and several other journals and anthologies. PLEASE, his first book, won the 2009 American Book Award.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,226 reviews
March 1, 2020
There is a remarkable line or revelation on each poem. What can’t he do?
April 17, 2024
‘I begin with love, hoping to end there,’ writes Jericho Brown in his marvelous, Pulitzer Prize winning collection The Tradition, ‘I don’t want to leave a messy corpse.’ The task of a poet is often to take in the world and transform the truths into art, a harrowing task when there seems to be a shadow of violence devouring the horizon. Jericho Brown, who is arguably one of the most important voices in poetry today, takes an imploring look into violence, from the personal to the cultural and political, and renders it into unflinching prose that dances to an introspective beat of resilience. There is an urgency to the work that warns against the normalization of the violence, brutality, and racism addressed within the book. In an interview with Michael Dumanis for the Bennington Review Brown discusses how the book is not only a warning against evil but also ‘the ways in which we are all complicit in many of these situations, however reluctant we may be to admit it.’ Brown gives us powerful perspectives on the evils in the world and asks us to not wash our hands of responsibility and allow evil to be normalized but to stand in defiance against it. A harrowing and necessary collection, what resonates from The Tradition is a clear precision of emotions across a wide-range of subjects and the poet’s voice as something approaching holy as he guides us through the horrors of the modern day with a steadfast belief that, if we can come from a place of love, there can be hope.
I am not a narrative
Form, but dammit if I don’t tell a story.
This collection is quite the important journey through modern day society told through a vulnerable honesty that will make you swoon even in the bleakest moments. Divided into three sections, The Tradition moves the reader across three different forms of identity in the world. As he examines in an interview with Beth Golay for NPR, the first section deals with domesticity and community, the ‘second section has much more to do with the world, the way capitalism oppresses us, real and figurative rape.’ The final third of the book ‘looks at an individual and some of the instances of that individual's life — ultimately of my life.’ While much of the work deals with difficult and violent subject matter, there is a sense of hope and ‘by the end of the book, what I hope I do is that I end in a note of celebration and in praise.’ The use of language is stunning, with complex metaphors, greek mythology and a strong sense of musicality in tight and tidy structures. These are poems that look so crisp on paper you practically hear the crunch of an apple when you bite in. Brown has a distinctly beautiful prose style that incorporates elements of the blues, pays homage to traditional forms while forging in bold new directions that are ripe for a graduate thesis paper to truly examine for all their wonders.
Perhaps most notable is his use of the Duplex, a form invented by Brown. The Duplex is what Brown terms as a bit of a “mutt” form. In his Invention, he says ‘I wanted a form that in my head was black and queer and Southern. Since I am carrying these truths in this body as one, how do I get a form that is many forms?’ The answer was the Duplex, a 14 line creation part sonnet, part pantoum, part ghazal and a healthy rhythm of the blues. Interested yet? He even graciously provides a prompt for creating one:
I love a man I know could die
And not by way of illness
And not by his own hand
But because of the color of that hand and all
His flawless skin…
In The Tradition, violence is examined from all angles. ‘I am a they in most of America’, Brown writes, ‘...lost in a forest / of we’. In a nation with a strong Us vs Them mentality, being a ‘they’ tends to mean anything outside a social power structure that places white, heteronormative patriarchy at the top, a social power structure that eagerly weaponizes fear and normalizes violence to oppress anyone perceived as the “they”. What is truly powerful in The Tradition is the ways Brown examines the intersections of marginalization, from being black in a world dominated by violent whiteness to being gay in a world still blind in hate towards anything outside of heteronormativity. ‘Blk is not a country, but I live there’, Brown writes, perfectly capturing the way blackness is both a beautiful identity to be a part of, but also looked at as a foreign country to direct aggression toward by a white society. The sonnet from which the collection takes its name is perhaps the best demonstration of the collection as a whole with regards to this idea:
Philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke against the ‘banality of evil’, something very much present in the evils examined within this work. Arendt warned that evil is perpetuated by the complicity of those who stand by, who just follow orders, who wash their hands of responsibility and allow it to continue. She wrote how totalitarianism, bureaucracy and all evil institutions ‘functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them’--we normalize violence when we act as if it is just part of life and happening outside ourselves. Perhaps a person does not think of themselves as evil but, as Plato warns ‘The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.’. Brown looks at the way this works in our modern life, and says to Michael Dumanis that ‘The Tradition is ultimately about evil and the normalization of evil. I was thinking about the ways we are complicit in the same evils, the ways I am complicit.’ We cannot be witness to this world and simply continue on as normal, we have to stop perpetuating violence by being complicit in the banality of evil. ‘no such thing as good white people,’ Brown concludes at the end of the poem ‘Good White People’, a powerful line we must take to heart. Whiteness itself becomes an identity rooted in racial oppression and even the ideas of ‘good white people’ tends most often to be mere signalling and posturing. It is not enough to not be racist, but one must be anti-racist. This also means having difficult conversations with yourself and acknowledging implicit biases. Nobody can ever be perfect, but flaws are a point for growth if we meet confrontation with a mind to listen, learn and grow instead of argument and defensiveness. The world is bigger than the self and the ego, and we must recognize this because, as Claudia Rankine writes in Citizen: An American Lyric, ‘because white men can't police their imaginations, black men are dying’.
Moving from the domestic, the national to the personal, Brown looks at the ways we have allowed violence to be normalized in society. There are discussions on police brutality, particularly those directed at the black community, such as when Brown imagines a death at the hands of the police:
Scared to see a movie
All the way through
I don’t have kids
Cuz I’d have to send them to school
My body is a temple in disrepair
The opposite of rape is understanding
This is what makes The Tradition so unbelievably urgent and authentic--it mixes and juxtaposes all the social, personal and political levels of daily life into a poem. It is a successful achievement of what Brown himself says he looks for in poetry:
I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.
The Tradition is a masterful work that continues to cement Jericho Brown’s place as an essential voice in our world today. The prose flows into you like a strong beat that you can’t help but dance to, and the messages it brings are urgent and necessary. The first step to recovery, they say, is admitting you have a problem. On a social level, this requires admitting that you are inherently complicit in the problems and recognizing the ways this allows evil to grow. This becomes a message of love, of growth, of hope that--despite the deep looks into violence throughout the book--are the shining light that emits from The Tradition. We must all learn to listen, to empathize, to recognize and grow. This will easily be one of the most important books from 2019 and I can’t recommend it more highly.
5/5
In the dream where I am an island,
I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.
I am not a narrative
Form, but dammit if I don’t tell a story.
This collection is quite the important journey through modern day society told through a vulnerable honesty that will make you swoon even in the bleakest moments. Divided into three sections, The Tradition moves the reader across three different forms of identity in the world. As he examines in an interview with Beth Golay for NPR, the first section deals with domesticity and community, the ‘second section has much more to do with the world, the way capitalism oppresses us, real and figurative rape.’ The final third of the book ‘looks at an individual and some of the instances of that individual's life — ultimately of my life.’ While much of the work deals with difficult and violent subject matter, there is a sense of hope and ‘by the end of the book, what I hope I do is that I end in a note of celebration and in praise.’ The use of language is stunning, with complex metaphors, greek mythology and a strong sense of musicality in tight and tidy structures. These are poems that look so crisp on paper you practically hear the crunch of an apple when you bite in. Brown has a distinctly beautiful prose style that incorporates elements of the blues, pays homage to traditional forms while forging in bold new directions that are ripe for a graduate thesis paper to truly examine for all their wonders.
Perhaps most notable is his use of the Duplex, a form invented by Brown. The Duplex is what Brown terms as a bit of a “mutt” form. In his Invention, he says ‘I wanted a form that in my head was black and queer and Southern. Since I am carrying these truths in this body as one, how do I get a form that is many forms?’ The answer was the Duplex, a 14 line creation part sonnet, part pantoum, part ghazal and a healthy rhythm of the blues. Interested yet? He even graciously provides a prompt for creating one:
Here are the boundaries:The delivery is astonishing, with the poem constantly building yet simultaneously returning to itself like an M.C. Escher of prose that brings you full circle while reaching out all the while. If Brown is anything, it is precise, and while the Duplex feels very controlled there is also an inherent freedom blossoming within.
Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.
The first line is echoed in the last line.
The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.
The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.
The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.
This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.
For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form.
I love a man I know could die
And not by way of illness
And not by his own hand
But because of the color of that hand and all
His flawless skin…
In The Tradition, violence is examined from all angles. ‘I am a they in most of America’, Brown writes, ‘...lost in a forest / of we’. In a nation with a strong Us vs Them mentality, being a ‘they’ tends to mean anything outside a social power structure that places white, heteronormative patriarchy at the top, a social power structure that eagerly weaponizes fear and normalizes violence to oppress anyone perceived as the “they”. What is truly powerful in The Tradition is the ways Brown examines the intersections of marginalization, from being black in a world dominated by violent whiteness to being gay in a world still blind in hate towards anything outside of heteronormativity. ‘Blk is not a country, but I live there’, Brown writes, perfectly capturing the way blackness is both a beautiful identity to be a part of, but also looked at as a foreign country to direct aggression toward by a white society. The sonnet from which the collection takes its name is perhaps the best demonstration of the collection as a whole with regards to this idea:
"The Tradition"Expect to find this poem anthologized in the coming years. Blackness as a flower is one of the many ways Brown plays with the concept of blackness, juxtaposing it across the collection in ways that examine the identity as well as the connotations with death. 'Gratitude is black--' he write, 'Black as a hero returning from war to a country that banked on his death. / Thank God. It can't get much darker than that.' This also brings up the notion of people as disposable to powers that be, particularly disposable if a person is a 'they'. It really can't get much darker than that.
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning
Names in heat, in elements classical
Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.
Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will
Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter
On this planet than when our dead fathers
Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.
Men like me and my brothers filmed what we
Planted for proof we existed before
Too late, sped the video to see blossoms
Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems
Where the world ends, everything cut down.
John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke against the ‘banality of evil’, something very much present in the evils examined within this work. Arendt warned that evil is perpetuated by the complicity of those who stand by, who just follow orders, who wash their hands of responsibility and allow it to continue. She wrote how totalitarianism, bureaucracy and all evil institutions ‘functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them’--we normalize violence when we act as if it is just part of life and happening outside ourselves. Perhaps a person does not think of themselves as evil but, as Plato warns ‘The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.’. Brown looks at the way this works in our modern life, and says to Michael Dumanis that ‘The Tradition is ultimately about evil and the normalization of evil. I was thinking about the ways we are complicit in the same evils, the ways I am complicit.’ We cannot be witness to this world and simply continue on as normal, we have to stop perpetuating violence by being complicit in the banality of evil. ‘no such thing as good white people,’ Brown concludes at the end of the poem ‘Good White People’, a powerful line we must take to heart. Whiteness itself becomes an identity rooted in racial oppression and even the ideas of ‘good white people’ tends most often to be mere signalling and posturing. It is not enough to not be racist, but one must be anti-racist. This also means having difficult conversations with yourself and acknowledging implicit biases. Nobody can ever be perfect, but flaws are a point for growth if we meet confrontation with a mind to listen, learn and grow instead of argument and defensiveness. The world is bigger than the self and the ego, and we must recognize this because, as Claudia Rankine writes in Citizen: An American Lyric, ‘because white men can't police their imaginations, black men are dying’.
Moving from the domestic, the national to the personal, Brown looks at the ways we have allowed violence to be normalized in society. There are discussions on police brutality, particularly those directed at the black community, such as when Brown imagines a death at the hands of the police:
He tookHave police killings become so normal that we just shrug it off? Are the frequency of them leaving people to spend so much time protesting the specific officer in the incident--who are far too often let off--instead of the systemic issues that are leading to violence? Violence seems around every corner and we all seem to proceed with gallows humor, normalizing it in our music, our films, our daily lives:
Me from us and left my body, which is,
No matter what we’ve been taught,
Greater than the settlement
A city can pay a mother to stop crying,
And more beautiful than the new bullet
Fished from the folds of my brain
Scared to see a movie
All the way through
I got to scream each scene’Entertainment Industry’ takes a probing look into the way violence has been normalized for profit in many industries, and how it often relies on stereotypical representations that further stigmas of marginalized communities. The idea that a gunshot on screen resonates so powerfully because being packed into a movie theater is willingly placing yourself in conditions ripe for a mass shooting is absolutely horrific, yet we live with this truth every day. A few stanzas later he addresses the way gun violence is now normalized as a common event in children’s schools:
Duck and get down
Mass shooting blues
I don’t have kids
Cuz I’d have to send them to school
Aint’ that safe as anyWe live in a society where resisting systemic violence is met with powerful institutions that value profit over people and have financial incentives to perpetuate the normalization, and then take the vulnerable-minded and propagate them until they do the defending of violence for them. Look at any facebook argument and you’ll see someone raging against their own self-interest to defend gun profits or racist institutions because they have been weaponized by their oppressors. Think of how often we allow ‘ a violence I mistook for desire’ into our lives, from personal injury to national injury. This is a society that has slaughtered in order to build itself on the bones of the dead. ‘Riddle’ addresses how we only value what society has determined is valued for it’s own profitable growth and perpetuates itself by responding with violence to anyone who they deem is out of line:
Plan for parenthood
Mass shooting blues
We love land soWe have allowed ourselves to be marketed into a corner, and this daily life we bemoan in opinion pieces is of our own making. The banality of evil has crept in and our silence allows it to continue.
Long as we can take it. Shhh. We
Can’t take that sound. What is
A mother wailing? We do not
Recognize music until we can
Sell it. We sell what cannot be
Bought. We buy silence…
My body is a temple in disrepair
The opposite of rape is understanding
This is what makes The Tradition so unbelievably urgent and authentic--it mixes and juxtaposes all the social, personal and political levels of daily life into a poem. It is a successful achievement of what Brown himself says he looks for in poetry:
’So no matter the race of the poet, I’m much more interested in a poem that is like the life we live. I want the poem that is like, “I saw that people got shot at the synagogue today, and I had a sandwich, and I miss my daughter.” And in actuality, that’s what a day in our life looks like, and the poem has to carry the tones of all those emotions.’If recognizing that this is now our lives isn’t a cry to stand up, speak out and move with purpose and action, I don’t know what is. Audre Lorde once wrote that ‘silence will not protect you’, and no truer statement can be said today. When we see violence, our silence might seem like a good way of keeping the peace with family and friends, or keeping the aim of oppressors away from you, but it is allowing that evil the space to grow. ‘Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it,’ warned Simone Weil, and The Tradition echos this cry. We need action and Jericho Brown shows us the two inevitable options left: ‘Peace on this planet / Or guns glowing hot’
I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.
The Tradition is a masterful work that continues to cement Jericho Brown’s place as an essential voice in our world today. The prose flows into you like a strong beat that you can’t help but dance to, and the messages it brings are urgent and necessary. The first step to recovery, they say, is admitting you have a problem. On a social level, this requires admitting that you are inherently complicit in the problems and recognizing the ways this allows evil to grow. This becomes a message of love, of growth, of hope that--despite the deep looks into violence throughout the book--are the shining light that emits from The Tradition. We must all learn to listen, to empathize, to recognize and grow. This will easily be one of the most important books from 2019 and I can’t recommend it more highly.
5/5
In the dream where I am an island,
I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.
August 27, 2019
It's getting more dificult for me to read poetry because I find a lot of it lingers in very "middle of the road" territory, which is how I felt this one was. Jericho's writing is certainly pretty and I highlighted a lot of impactful lines, but I also found myself skimming some poems that I couldn't quite comprehend, and there wasn't a poem in this collection that I loved start to finish, even though great messages and introspection are sprinkled throughout. I don't think this book is quite my taste in poetry, but it was still a nice collection about a black queer man that I enjoyed reading.
April 6, 2019
The Tradition is a stunning and poignant collection of poems that examine the ache, the grief, the sexuality, the music, and the language of the black body. Be it man, woman, lover, or tormentor, these roles are exposed and explored with a sharp and slightly sardonic eye. These poems challenge our collective amnesia and complacency with the horrors unleashed upon our communities and our very own bodies; the ways in which we fight for autonomy and freedom, the ways in which we lie to ourselves to avoid confronting the violence inflicted by those who were supposed to keep us safe and loved. Coupled with the incredible formal and stylistic variety on constant display, The Tradition is a simply a flawlessly written collection of elegiac and lyrical poems that will continually linger in my mind.
August 25, 2024
Many of the poems in the first half of this book focus on the political. Most in the second dwell on the personal. You might like one or the other or both.
For a sample poem, along with one from a book I read at the same time, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, you can go down this rabbit hole..
For a sample poem, along with one from a book I read at the same time, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, you can go down this rabbit hole..
January 14, 2020
OMG. I don't even know where to begin with this.
Jericho Brown touched me on levels with The Tradition. I swear I was reading this on the bus and subway and just felt my eyes filling with water. This is some of the heaviest poetry I've read since I read Felon last month by Reginald Dwayne Betts.
I can't even get into how good this effort is, I'm shaking. Bullet Points is a HUGE highlight of the poetry offered up here. Every time the words, "I promise you" came up - I felt this movement in my chest that just dragged me back to seeing the videos of so many unnecessary deaths of black brothers and sisters dying in police custody. My spirit was alive, Jericho Brown brought the spirits of ancestors watching over us, to us, in this poem.
Of My Fury, Turn You Over and Stay also hit me hard.. as a person newly trying to understand my place in certain relationships, these three pieces hit me differently and were incredibly heavy. Jericho Brown has a way with words, evoking joy, confusion, longing, happiness that feels light but breakable, conflicted but needy in it's yearning for longevity. Yo honestly, these poems.. hit! me! hard!
In Hero, when he said "Gratitude is black" - yoooo I FELT THAT SHIT.
I would highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this book of poems to anyone who's even remotely interested in reading some great poetry or anyone who just wants to have their minds blown for a long while after reading.
Jericho Brown touched me on levels with The Tradition. I swear I was reading this on the bus and subway and just felt my eyes filling with water. This is some of the heaviest poetry I've read since I read Felon last month by Reginald Dwayne Betts.
I can't even get into how good this effort is, I'm shaking. Bullet Points is a HUGE highlight of the poetry offered up here. Every time the words, "I promise you" came up - I felt this movement in my chest that just dragged me back to seeing the videos of so many unnecessary deaths of black brothers and sisters dying in police custody. My spirit was alive, Jericho Brown brought the spirits of ancestors watching over us, to us, in this poem.
Of My Fury, Turn You Over and Stay also hit me hard.. as a person newly trying to understand my place in certain relationships, these three pieces hit me differently and were incredibly heavy. Jericho Brown has a way with words, evoking joy, confusion, longing, happiness that feels light but breakable, conflicted but needy in it's yearning for longevity. Yo honestly, these poems.. hit! me! hard!
In Hero, when he said "Gratitude is black" - yoooo I FELT THAT SHIT.
I would highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this book of poems to anyone who's even remotely interested in reading some great poetry or anyone who just wants to have their minds blown for a long while after reading.
Read
August 2, 2021you sit understanding / Yourself as a human being finally / Free now that nobody’s got to love you.
I personally didn’t care for the writing style and there were a few poems I felt indifferent about, but overall I thought this was a great exploration of Blackness, queerness, and trauma. I loved the way Brown played with language in how he reused his own phrases but breathed new meanings into them (particularly in the new poetry form he invented), and I enjoyed his thoughtful expression of intimacy, both familial and romantic.
I personally didn’t care for the writing style and there were a few poems I felt indifferent about, but overall I thought this was a great exploration of Blackness, queerness, and trauma. I loved the way Brown played with language in how he reused his own phrases but breathed new meanings into them (particularly in the new poetry form he invented), and I enjoyed his thoughtful expression of intimacy, both familial and romantic.
January 1, 2020
National Book Award for Poetry Longlist 2019. Brown’s poetry has twists that make us think. They start off in one direction and within a few short phrases move to more weighty issues—how the body is vulnerable to infection (HIV), physical abuse, racism, and more. Recommend these lyrical compact poems.
May 28, 2020
I will not shoot myself
In the head, and I will not shoot myself
In the back, and I will not hang myself
With a trashbag, and if I do,
I promise you, I will not do it
In a police car while handcuffed
Or in the jail cell of a town
I only know the name of
Because I have to drive through it
To get home. Yes, I may be at risk,
But I promise you, I trust the maggots
Who live beneath the floorboards
Of my house to do what they must
To any carcass more than I trust
An officer of the law of the land
To shut my eyes like a man
Of God might, or to cover me with a sheet
So clean my mother could have used it
To tuck me in. When I kill me, I will
Do it the same way most Americans do,
I promise you: cigarette smoke
Or a piece of meat on which I choke
Or so broke I freeze
In one of these winters we keep
Calling worst. I promise if you hear
Of me dead anywhere near
A cop, then that cop killed me. He took
Me from us and left my body, which is,
No matter what we've been taught,
Greater than the settlement
A city can pay a mother to stop crying,
And more beautiful than the new bullet
Fished from the folds of my brain.
In the head, and I will not shoot myself
In the back, and I will not hang myself
With a trashbag, and if I do,
I promise you, I will not do it
In a police car while handcuffed
Or in the jail cell of a town
I only know the name of
Because I have to drive through it
To get home. Yes, I may be at risk,
But I promise you, I trust the maggots
Who live beneath the floorboards
Of my house to do what they must
To any carcass more than I trust
An officer of the law of the land
To shut my eyes like a man
Of God might, or to cover me with a sheet
So clean my mother could have used it
To tuck me in. When I kill me, I will
Do it the same way most Americans do,
I promise you: cigarette smoke
Or a piece of meat on which I choke
Or so broke I freeze
In one of these winters we keep
Calling worst. I promise if you hear
Of me dead anywhere near
A cop, then that cop killed me. He took
Me from us and left my body, which is,
No matter what we've been taught,
Greater than the settlement
A city can pay a mother to stop crying,
And more beautiful than the new bullet
Fished from the folds of my brain.
July 8, 2019
I first encountered Jericho Brown on a recent episode of On Being, where he discussed his work, his life as a gay, black, HIV-positive man, and how he dealt with honesty in his own work (specifically around the subject of rape... he talks about how he wrote around it until he just couldn't write until he dealt with it more directly.)
It's hard to claim "favorites" in this collection because what Jericho Brown does is speak truths, but they are painful and eviscerating at times. What more could we want from poetry?
So, favorites:
Hero
Riddle
Foreday in the Morning (you can hear this one on the On Being podcast linked above)
Dear Whiteness
It's hard to claim "favorites" in this collection because what Jericho Brown does is speak truths, but they are painful and eviscerating at times. What more could we want from poetry?
So, favorites:
Hero
Riddle
Foreday in the Morning (you can hear this one on the On Being podcast linked above)
Dear Whiteness
June 2, 2020
Please read this.
March 8, 2021
You can just tell Jericho Brown is brilliant and working on so many levels. I enjoyed my first read of this collection but think a lot of it went over my head. The parts that I knew how to read really resonated, the parts that didn’t resonate might need a few more reads. Certainly a worthy collection.
May 2, 2021
So I'm trying to get more into poetry. Admittedly, I'm not too keen on it, (poems can be pretty demanding) but this collection left me quite stunned. The writing is beautiful; the imagery is rich and evocative. Examining the personal and the political, these poems demand to be re-read, and that's exactly what I plan to do.
July 9, 2020
I promise if you hear Of me dead anywhere near A cop, then that cop killed me.
This collection didn't make me wanna holler, as it were. I just didn't connect with it. Various phrases looped about and fluttered upon contemplation but nothing further, nothing ripened, not even the two peaches noted to be dropped into the shopping basket. There appeared to be excessive badges on display and I understand the cost of such. I probably have a mental idea of what those badges involve, though I personally haven't felt the emotional effects thereof.
I watched a few readings of Mr. Brown earlier. There’s obviously a sincerity involved, I just don’t appear receptive to such presently.
This collection didn't make me wanna holler, as it were. I just didn't connect with it. Various phrases looped about and fluttered upon contemplation but nothing further, nothing ripened, not even the two peaches noted to be dropped into the shopping basket. There appeared to be excessive badges on display and I understand the cost of such. I probably have a mental idea of what those badges involve, though I personally haven't felt the emotional effects thereof.
I watched a few readings of Mr. Brown earlier. There’s obviously a sincerity involved, I just don’t appear receptive to such presently.
December 23, 2020
The Tradition won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2020. So, I had high hopes for it. I, not being a fan of modern poetry, thought that this poetry collection could convince me otherwise, but I was wrong.
The poems discuss a lot of social and political topics like racism, rape, gun violence. There are some good bits in the poems. A couple of poems, I liked even, but I didn't like the form. It just didn't resonate with me.
The poems discuss a lot of social and political topics like racism, rape, gun violence. There are some good bits in the poems. A couple of poems, I liked even, but I didn't like the form. It just didn't resonate with me.
June 24, 2019
Poems that examine the personal and the political and how they impact upon each other (particularly the political upon the individual). Often filled with strongly negative judgments on the self, the poems combine poems of fatherhood, trauma, being gay and all its personal complications (as well as the complications of being human and looking for safety and love).
Brown uses an interesting combination of forms, including sonnets and the ghazal, a form I especially admire and enjoy).
These poems are both formally and emotionally interesting and powerful. It's a volume I will read again; it is too full to read only once.
Brown uses an interesting combination of forms, including sonnets and the ghazal, a form I especially admire and enjoy).
These poems are both formally and emotionally interesting and powerful. It's a volume I will read again; it is too full to read only once.
September 29, 2019
A varied collection about race and sexuality. Wonderful language and structure.
April 16, 2021
I begin with love, hoping to end there
Goddamn.
Despite the rage and bewilderment evident in several poems in The Tradition, poems that burn and seethe with the attempted obliteration of America's Black men, its Black families—
The people of my country believe
We can't be hurt if we can be bought
...from 'Ganymede'
***
I'll never know who started the lie that we
are lazy,
But I'd love to wake that bastard up
At foreday in the morning, toss him in a truck, and drive him under
God
Past every bus stop in America to see all those black folk
Waiting to go to work for whatever they want. A house? A boy
To keep the lawn cut? Some color in the yard? My god, we leave
things green.
...from 'Foreday in the Morning'
— there is such joy and tenderness in Jericho Brown’s words and in his voice. There is such love.
This is a writer centering Black, centering queer, centering the body and family and all their inherent complexities and confusion, beauty and community.
My body is a temple in disrepair.
The opposite of rape is understanding. from Duplex, page 27
Many of the poems, particularly in Part I & II, look outward at the historical legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, yet with a deeply personal and contemporary response. Others are far more intimate, embracing with tenderness and regret the shifting loyalties of lovers, families, sacred spaces.
Brown writes with such awareness of the physical body, taking up space in bed with a lover, on a sidewalk, in a park, a Black man claiming the space that Black people have been denied for four hundred years. Part III feels like Jericho exploring Jericho navigating love and intimacy —
Don’t accuse me of sleeping with your man
When I didn’t know you had a man.
Back when I didn’t know you had a man.
The moon glowed above the city’s blackout. from Duplex, page 68.
Duplex refers to a poetic form that Jericho Brown created as he was crafting the poems that would eventually become The Tradition. He describes duplex as a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues.
"Here are the boundaries:(from The Poetry Foundation, March 15, 2020) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harr...
Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.
The first line is echoed in the last line.
The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.
The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.
The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.
This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.
For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form."
This collection is so moving. And I mean in the sense that there is so much motion, of the heart, the mind, the body. Beautiful and profound.
Full disclosure: I am an employee of Copper Canyon Press, Jericho's publisher. This review is entirely my own and not written in association with Copper Canyon Press.
Goddamn.
Despite the rage and bewilderment evident in several poems in The Tradition, poems that burn and seethe with the attempted obliteration of America's Black men, its Black families—
The people of my country believe
We can't be hurt if we can be bought
...from 'Ganymede'
***
I'll never know who started the lie that we
are lazy,
But I'd love to wake that bastard up
At foreday in the morning, toss him in a truck, and drive him under
God
Past every bus stop in America to see all those black folk
Waiting to go to work for whatever they want. A house? A boy
To keep the lawn cut? Some color in the yard? My god, we leave
things green.
...from 'Foreday in the Morning'
— there is such joy and tenderness in Jericho Brown’s words and in his voice. There is such love.
This is a writer centering Black, centering queer, centering the body and family and all their inherent complexities and confusion, beauty and community.
My body is a temple in disrepair.
The opposite of rape is understanding. from Duplex, page 27
Many of the poems, particularly in Part I & II, look outward at the historical legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, yet with a deeply personal and contemporary response. Others are far more intimate, embracing with tenderness and regret the shifting loyalties of lovers, families, sacred spaces.
Brown writes with such awareness of the physical body, taking up space in bed with a lover, on a sidewalk, in a park, a Black man claiming the space that Black people have been denied for four hundred years. Part III feels like Jericho exploring Jericho navigating love and intimacy —
Don’t accuse me of sleeping with your man
When I didn’t know you had a man.
Back when I didn’t know you had a man.
The moon glowed above the city’s blackout. from Duplex, page 68.
Duplex refers to a poetic form that Jericho Brown created as he was crafting the poems that would eventually become The Tradition. He describes duplex as a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues.
"Here are the boundaries:(from The Poetry Foundation, March 15, 2020) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harr...
Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.
The first line is echoed in the last line.
The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.
The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.
The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.
This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.
For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form."
This collection is so moving. And I mean in the sense that there is so much motion, of the heart, the mind, the body. Beautiful and profound.
Full disclosure: I am an employee of Copper Canyon Press, Jericho's publisher. This review is entirely my own and not written in association with Copper Canyon Press.
April 12, 2021
As ridiculous as it seems to follow the reading of something like this with words, I’ll throw out just a few: brilliant, searing, surprising, breathtaking.
I spent a good bit of time with this collection, and highly recommend checking out this Pulitzer-winning poet. He goes places you don’t expect and brings back rare, shiny pearls.
Jericho Brown covers a wide range of subjects here, but there are two poems in particular that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind, and they can be experienced online.
Read “Bullet Points” here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...
And listen to the author recite “Foreday in the Morning” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD6PT...
You may be forever changed.
I spent a good bit of time with this collection, and highly recommend checking out this Pulitzer-winning poet. He goes places you don’t expect and brings back rare, shiny pearls.
Jericho Brown covers a wide range of subjects here, but there are two poems in particular that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind, and they can be experienced online.
Read “Bullet Points” here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...
And listen to the author recite “Foreday in the Morning” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD6PT...
You may be forever changed.
August 11, 2020
3.5 stars
I’m definitely one of the very few who feel this way, but the style many of these poems just wasn’t for me.
You could viscerally feel how personal and meaningful these poems were to the author, which I appreciate, respect and admire. But the rhythm, cadence and flow of many of them weren’t quite there for me personally.
I do truly believe this is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.” Jericho Brown is obviously an immensely talented poet, as portrayed by the clever wordplay and poetic explorations present in many of the poems, as well as his ability to draw emotions from his poetry. They just didn’t quite stick with me personally.
(And 3.5 stars isn’t a bad rating by any means, just not quite at the level of the 4 to 5 star ratings that abound for this collection).
I’m definitely one of the very few who feel this way, but the style many of these poems just wasn’t for me.
You could viscerally feel how personal and meaningful these poems were to the author, which I appreciate, respect and admire. But the rhythm, cadence and flow of many of them weren’t quite there for me personally.
I do truly believe this is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.” Jericho Brown is obviously an immensely talented poet, as portrayed by the clever wordplay and poetic explorations present in many of the poems, as well as his ability to draw emotions from his poetry. They just didn’t quite stick with me personally.
(And 3.5 stars isn’t a bad rating by any means, just not quite at the level of the 4 to 5 star ratings that abound for this collection).
September 2, 2020
A Stunning collection!
Read
August 21, 2023i loved all of the duplex poems!! it’s so satisfying when a poem is cyclic to me. it just scratches a specific part of my brain. it’s amazing that jericho brown created such a cool and technical form.
poems on brutality, queerness, and existing as a black person with the persisting threat of violence. major content warnings for :SA and death
poems on brutality, queerness, and existing as a black person with the persisting threat of violence. major content warnings for :SA and death
July 6, 2020
I liked these poems, but I found that they didn't stay with me, burrowing under the skin, like my favourite collections do. Nonetheless, there were many that I did love, and the exploration of Brown's identity throughout was compelling.
April 4, 2023
Sono l'uomo delle domande
The Tradition ha ricevuto il Premio Pulitzer per la poesia, come testo capace di trattare insieme delicatezza e urgenza in una storica e amorevole evocazione di una corporeità vulnerabile e oppositiva alla violenza. Trauma e dolore trovano voce musicale e lirismo critico in un testo formalmente elevato che appassiona la coscienza presente, coltiva un noi plurale e mistico, aperto alla differenza umana e alla trasmissione culturale.
La parola poetica di Jericho Brown è prima di ogni altra cosa la scrittura di un nero, di un uomo che sa che tutto quello che gli accade dipende dalla violenza. La parola di Jericho Brown è scrittura della “nerezza”, della blackness che lega l'uomo afroamericano e il colore della pelle ad alcune certezze: il luogo dove nasci, il futuro a te destinato, la violenza. Non c'è altra ragione nel comporre questa lettera aperta al lato oscuro dell'America, alla verità della schiavitù originaria e al razzismo di chi detiene il potere e la forza negli States: si prendono la scena le stragi di massa, le ingiustizie, la violenza giovanile e di genere, il conflitto che muove ogni intenzione antropologica profonda della cultura nordamericana.
Così, da questa primaria esigenza di aprire il vaso della memoria di un'eredità traumatica e il cassetto disordinato di un rabbioso terrore, discende la seconda motivazione di questa sinfonia intima e ancestrale, ovvero quella erotica, quella di essere essenzialmente un poeta dell'eros - ”I am a love poet”, dichiara Jericho Brown, - eros che resta l'unica risposta infallibile alla fatalità e alla irreparabilità della morte, contenuto fondante nella prima causa, e quindi questa seconda vocazione fa di Brown un poeta che contrappone la salvezza e la bellezza e la sopravvivenza a bilanciare la normalità del male, l'inevitabile separatezza dell'inferno morale.
Certo, un uomo omosessuale, in virtù di questa identità rappresentante di ogni singola specificità, ogni pericolosa differenza, ogni negata e irriducibile unicità. Si afferma quindi una prospettiva comunitaria, a coinvolgere le fragilità della vita in un sistema compromesso che piega l'essere verso l'estinzione; con un teatro dove protagonista è il male umano, dove l'amore stesso è emarginato ad essere battaglia, ferocia, lotta tra animali affamati, incontro tra bisogni e volontà nemiche. L'amore è poetico e nei versi si fa politico tramite svolte e decostruzioni, redenzione e immaginario. Il pensiero fluisce circolare e discorsi e parti si sovrappongono e sfumano l'una nell'altro. Times what i love just/Doesn't show up at all./It can hurt me if it/Means to... because/That's what in love means. What i love/Understand itself/As properly scarce./It knows I can't need/What i don't go without.
Conversano forma e contenuto, i fatti dialogano con le voci, e insieme la musicalità inconfondibile del pianto libero degli esseri umani si fa racconto, nell'influenza di poesia e musica frequentate e assimilate da Brown in estati bibliotecarie, luogo al quale la madre affidava lui e la sorella. Alcune di queste poesie hanno un'impostazione epistolare, sono indirizzate a un destinatario, altre parlano come dal pulpito di un predicatore o da un palcoscenico, altrove ancora in scena c'è la mitologia e il pubblico è implicito.
Brown esplora ogni possibilità concreta della parola e invia a sé stesso con malinconia fantasiosa e ponderatezza di linguaggio l'immagine affascinante di un vero uomo d'America.
E ancora per concludere, la parola di Brown decodifica l'alterità del reale a partire dall'io decomposto nelle sue diverse moltitudini: restituisce quindi senso al mondo con la vivacità dei sentimenti e il polimorfismo delle emozioni, che danno luogo a parziali rapimenti, epifanie verticali e fugaci deviazioni. I've worked hard and want/To bring something sweet/So they know I've missed them/More than anyone else. But first,/I weigh the peaches, pay/For them, make the short drive/To my childhood/Home of latches, mazes,/And Locked doors. Every Key/Mine now, tough I've hidden a few/From myself. I pride myself/On my gifts./I can fashion for you/A place to play, and when you think/It's dark there, I hand you/Fruit like two swollen bulbs/Of light you can hold on to,/Watch your eyes brighten as you eat.
Questa decomposizione dell'ego nell'altro ha quindi luogo sulla pagina, dentro il linguaggio, e anche nel corpo della persona, dove il farsi poetico trasferisce identità dalla nerezza e dalla omosessualità del poeta verso ogni tipologia di differenza di personalità, il malato mentale, il recluso, il povero, il nomade, l'oppresso, la disoccupata, la schiava, il nevrotico, in un'ottica che include ogni cambiamento, ogni inganno, ogni finzione di cui l'essere umano si rende protagonista. Noi, nel senso poetico, esistiamo simultaneamente nel nostro corpo e nel corpo di tutte le altre e tutti gli altri, iniziando dalle persone che amiamo, passando per i corpi delle vittime, schiavi, donne, persone mutilate, ferite, stuprate, sopraffatte, torturate e depredate, fino ad accogliere in una metafisica preghiera umanitaria il coro stesso dei colpevoli, i violenti, i ladri, i criminali, gli assassini, coloro che, ormai disincarnati, detengono la forza e il potere. They tought they could/Own the dirt they were/Bound to. In that part/Of the country, a knot/is something you get/After getting knocked down, and story means lie./In your plot/of the country, class means school, this room/Where we practice/Words that undo your/Tongue when you tell/A lie or start a promise/Or unravel like a story.
La Tradizione è un testo meraviglioso e profetico, che non arretra davanti a nulla, che esprime con intensità e potenza ogni eco, ogni scintilla, ogni minima unità o parzialità, dove sia possibile vedere rivelarsi e illuminarsi la figura umana, la forma naturale di noi comuni viventi.
Turn You Over
“All my anxiety is separation anxiety./I want to believe you are here with me,/But the bed is bigger and the trash/Overflows. Someone righteous should/Take out my garbage. I am so many odd/And enviable things. Righteous is not/one of them,/ I'd rather a man to avoid/Than a man to imagine in a realm/Unseen, tough even the doctor who/Shut your eyes swears you're somewhere/As close as breath. Mine, not yours./You don't have breath. You got/Heaven. That's supposed to be my/Haven. I want you to tell me it sparkles/There. I want you to tell me anything/Again and again while I turn you over/To quiet you or to wake and remind you/I can't be expected to clean up after a man”.
Girandoti
Tutta la mia ansia è ansia da separazione/. Voglio credere che tu sia qui con me,/ Ma il letto è più grande e il cestino/ Strabocca. Qualche giusto dovrebbe/ Portar via la spazzatura. Io sono tante cose/ Strane e invidiabili. Giustizia non è/Fra quelle. Preferirei un uomo da evitare/Che un uomo da immaginare in un reame/Invisibile, benché perfino il medico che/Ti ha chiuso gli occhi giuri che sei in un posto/Vicino come il respiro. Il mio, non il tuo./Tu non hai respiro. Hai avuto il/Paradiso. Che dovrebbe essere il mio/Rifugio. Voglio che tu mi dica che tutto/Brilla lassù. Voglio tu mi dica qualcosa/Ancora e ancora mentre ti giro/Per calmarti o svegliarti e ricordarti/Che non sarò io a fare ordine dopo di te.
The Tradition ha ricevuto il Premio Pulitzer per la poesia, come testo capace di trattare insieme delicatezza e urgenza in una storica e amorevole evocazione di una corporeità vulnerabile e oppositiva alla violenza. Trauma e dolore trovano voce musicale e lirismo critico in un testo formalmente elevato che appassiona la coscienza presente, coltiva un noi plurale e mistico, aperto alla differenza umana e alla trasmissione culturale.
La parola poetica di Jericho Brown è prima di ogni altra cosa la scrittura di un nero, di un uomo che sa che tutto quello che gli accade dipende dalla violenza. La parola di Jericho Brown è scrittura della “nerezza”, della blackness che lega l'uomo afroamericano e il colore della pelle ad alcune certezze: il luogo dove nasci, il futuro a te destinato, la violenza. Non c'è altra ragione nel comporre questa lettera aperta al lato oscuro dell'America, alla verità della schiavitù originaria e al razzismo di chi detiene il potere e la forza negli States: si prendono la scena le stragi di massa, le ingiustizie, la violenza giovanile e di genere, il conflitto che muove ogni intenzione antropologica profonda della cultura nordamericana.
Così, da questa primaria esigenza di aprire il vaso della memoria di un'eredità traumatica e il cassetto disordinato di un rabbioso terrore, discende la seconda motivazione di questa sinfonia intima e ancestrale, ovvero quella erotica, quella di essere essenzialmente un poeta dell'eros - ”I am a love poet”, dichiara Jericho Brown, - eros che resta l'unica risposta infallibile alla fatalità e alla irreparabilità della morte, contenuto fondante nella prima causa, e quindi questa seconda vocazione fa di Brown un poeta che contrappone la salvezza e la bellezza e la sopravvivenza a bilanciare la normalità del male, l'inevitabile separatezza dell'inferno morale.
Certo, un uomo omosessuale, in virtù di questa identità rappresentante di ogni singola specificità, ogni pericolosa differenza, ogni negata e irriducibile unicità. Si afferma quindi una prospettiva comunitaria, a coinvolgere le fragilità della vita in un sistema compromesso che piega l'essere verso l'estinzione; con un teatro dove protagonista è il male umano, dove l'amore stesso è emarginato ad essere battaglia, ferocia, lotta tra animali affamati, incontro tra bisogni e volontà nemiche. L'amore è poetico e nei versi si fa politico tramite svolte e decostruzioni, redenzione e immaginario. Il pensiero fluisce circolare e discorsi e parti si sovrappongono e sfumano l'una nell'altro. Times what i love just/Doesn't show up at all./It can hurt me if it/Means to... because/That's what in love means. What i love/Understand itself/As properly scarce./It knows I can't need/What i don't go without.
Conversano forma e contenuto, i fatti dialogano con le voci, e insieme la musicalità inconfondibile del pianto libero degli esseri umani si fa racconto, nell'influenza di poesia e musica frequentate e assimilate da Brown in estati bibliotecarie, luogo al quale la madre affidava lui e la sorella. Alcune di queste poesie hanno un'impostazione epistolare, sono indirizzate a un destinatario, altre parlano come dal pulpito di un predicatore o da un palcoscenico, altrove ancora in scena c'è la mitologia e il pubblico è implicito.
Brown esplora ogni possibilità concreta della parola e invia a sé stesso con malinconia fantasiosa e ponderatezza di linguaggio l'immagine affascinante di un vero uomo d'America.
E ancora per concludere, la parola di Brown decodifica l'alterità del reale a partire dall'io decomposto nelle sue diverse moltitudini: restituisce quindi senso al mondo con la vivacità dei sentimenti e il polimorfismo delle emozioni, che danno luogo a parziali rapimenti, epifanie verticali e fugaci deviazioni. I've worked hard and want/To bring something sweet/So they know I've missed them/More than anyone else. But first,/I weigh the peaches, pay/For them, make the short drive/To my childhood/Home of latches, mazes,/And Locked doors. Every Key/Mine now, tough I've hidden a few/From myself. I pride myself/On my gifts./I can fashion for you/A place to play, and when you think/It's dark there, I hand you/Fruit like two swollen bulbs/Of light you can hold on to,/Watch your eyes brighten as you eat.
Questa decomposizione dell'ego nell'altro ha quindi luogo sulla pagina, dentro il linguaggio, e anche nel corpo della persona, dove il farsi poetico trasferisce identità dalla nerezza e dalla omosessualità del poeta verso ogni tipologia di differenza di personalità, il malato mentale, il recluso, il povero, il nomade, l'oppresso, la disoccupata, la schiava, il nevrotico, in un'ottica che include ogni cambiamento, ogni inganno, ogni finzione di cui l'essere umano si rende protagonista. Noi, nel senso poetico, esistiamo simultaneamente nel nostro corpo e nel corpo di tutte le altre e tutti gli altri, iniziando dalle persone che amiamo, passando per i corpi delle vittime, schiavi, donne, persone mutilate, ferite, stuprate, sopraffatte, torturate e depredate, fino ad accogliere in una metafisica preghiera umanitaria il coro stesso dei colpevoli, i violenti, i ladri, i criminali, gli assassini, coloro che, ormai disincarnati, detengono la forza e il potere. They tought they could/Own the dirt they were/Bound to. In that part/Of the country, a knot/is something you get/After getting knocked down, and story means lie./In your plot/of the country, class means school, this room/Where we practice/Words that undo your/Tongue when you tell/A lie or start a promise/Or unravel like a story.
La Tradizione è un testo meraviglioso e profetico, che non arretra davanti a nulla, che esprime con intensità e potenza ogni eco, ogni scintilla, ogni minima unità o parzialità, dove sia possibile vedere rivelarsi e illuminarsi la figura umana, la forma naturale di noi comuni viventi.
Turn You Over
“All my anxiety is separation anxiety./I want to believe you are here with me,/But the bed is bigger and the trash/Overflows. Someone righteous should/Take out my garbage. I am so many odd/And enviable things. Righteous is not/one of them,/ I'd rather a man to avoid/Than a man to imagine in a realm/Unseen, tough even the doctor who/Shut your eyes swears you're somewhere/As close as breath. Mine, not yours./You don't have breath. You got/Heaven. That's supposed to be my/Haven. I want you to tell me it sparkles/There. I want you to tell me anything/Again and again while I turn you over/To quiet you or to wake and remind you/I can't be expected to clean up after a man”.
Girandoti
Tutta la mia ansia è ansia da separazione/. Voglio credere che tu sia qui con me,/ Ma il letto è più grande e il cestino/ Strabocca. Qualche giusto dovrebbe/ Portar via la spazzatura. Io sono tante cose/ Strane e invidiabili. Giustizia non è/Fra quelle. Preferirei un uomo da evitare/Che un uomo da immaginare in un reame/Invisibile, benché perfino il medico che/Ti ha chiuso gli occhi giuri che sei in un posto/Vicino come il respiro. Il mio, non il tuo./Tu non hai respiro. Hai avuto il/Paradiso. Che dovrebbe essere il mio/Rifugio. Voglio che tu mi dica che tutto/Brilla lassù. Voglio tu mi dica qualcosa/Ancora e ancora mentre ti giro/Per calmarti o svegliarti e ricordarti/Che non sarò io a fare ordine dopo di te.
March 14, 2022
Such a vulnerable yet impactful piece of writing.
February 20, 2024
so many powerful pieces of prose on police brutality, queerness, being Black in the United States, and just the state of the world. My favorite piece that really stuck with was the poem entitled Riddle
Riddle
We do not recognize the body Of Emmett Till. We do not know
The boy’s name nor the sound Of his mother wailing.
We have Never heard a mother wailing.
We do not know the history Of this nation in ourselves. We Do not know the history of our- Selves on this planet because
We do not have to know what
We believe we own. We believe
We own your bodies but have no Use for your tears. We destroy
The body that refuses use. We use
Maps we did not draw. We see
A sea so cross it. We see a moon
So land there. We love land so
Long as we can take it. Shhh. We
Can’t take that sound. What is
A mother wailing? We do not
Recognize music until we can Sell it. We sell what cannot be
Bought. We buy silence. Let us
Help you. How much does it cost
To hold your breath underwater?
Wait. Wait. What are we? What?
What on Earth are we? What?
Riddle
We do not recognize the body Of Emmett Till. We do not know
The boy’s name nor the sound Of his mother wailing.
We have Never heard a mother wailing.
We do not know the history Of this nation in ourselves. We Do not know the history of our- Selves on this planet because
We do not have to know what
We believe we own. We believe
We own your bodies but have no Use for your tears. We destroy
The body that refuses use. We use
Maps we did not draw. We see
A sea so cross it. We see a moon
So land there. We love land so
Long as we can take it. Shhh. We
Can’t take that sound. What is
A mother wailing? We do not
Recognize music until we can Sell it. We sell what cannot be
Bought. We buy silence. Let us
Help you. How much does it cost
To hold your breath underwater?
Wait. Wait. What are we? What?
What on Earth are we? What?
April 7, 2019
This book will turn you inside out.
June 20, 2020
Beautiful, angry, timely - accessible enough for poetry noobs like me, but full of formal invention and smarts.
December 15, 2019
“The Tradition” is the third collection of poems by Jericho Brown, an American, Louisiana-born, prize-winning poet. For me it was the first experience with his deeply personal, intimate verses. They are rooted in American culture and history, in which black bodies are abused and hated even by their owners. Brown writes about the struggle to accept himself, as a black person, as a man, as a gay and about the dissonance between how he sees himself, how he thinks he should feel about himself and how others perceive him. Fragility, vulnerability on the one hand and violence and brutality on the other permeate the pages of this collection. His black body isn’t only his - and this cultural and historical concept of owning a body reminds me much of what I studied about collective trauma in my master’s programme.
As for violence, Brown often admits mistaking violence and abuse for love and desire. Then there is Christian religion with its outdated notions of noble suffering, redemption and salvation which do not bring solace. There is God, but he/she does not comfort or forgive.
Brown’s poems are essentially about discovering yourself, accepting yourself and finding peace with your and collective past. They are a brave expression of black, male identity in the making, where old patterns don’t fit anymore but the society is not ready yet to get rid of them. Beautiful and painful.
As for violence, Brown often admits mistaking violence and abuse for love and desire. Then there is Christian religion with its outdated notions of noble suffering, redemption and salvation which do not bring solace. There is God, but he/she does not comfort or forgive.
Brown’s poems are essentially about discovering yourself, accepting yourself and finding peace with your and collective past. They are a brave expression of black, male identity in the making, where old patterns don’t fit anymore but the society is not ready yet to get rid of them. Beautiful and painful.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,226 reviews