"Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Tradition reshapes the poetic landscape with unmatched power and poignancy."

📖 Read the review:
https://thebrokenspine.co.uk/2021/06/13/the-tradition-by-jericho-brown-a-review-by-maddy-templeton/

#JerichoBrown #PrideMonth

I turned myself into a question

Black Dictionary
Jericho Brown

#Poetry #JerichoBrown #BlackDictionary #TheNewYorker

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/02/17/black-dictionary-jericho-brown-poem

Jericho Brown reflects on his Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry and the craft of creating work that challenges and inspires.

📖 Read the interview:
https://thebrokenspine.co.uk/2022/04/14/dog-ear-feature-interview-with-jericho-brown/

#PulitzerPoetry #JerichoBrown

Today's poem:

Vaccinated
- by Jericho Brown

https://www.tumblr.com/ukdamo/775807437123026944/vaccinated?source=share

#Covid19 #Identity #Illness #LGBTQ #SocialJustice #Violence #poetry #JerichoBrown

You can watch me while I watch you

Aerial View
Jericho Brown

#Poetry #JerichoBrown #AerialView #Lions #Africa #Giraffes #Literature

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/aerial-view-jericho-brown-poem

Today's poem:

Lenoir
- by Jericho Brown

https://www.tumblr.com/ukdamo/737851133940334592/lenoir?source=share

#poetry #JerichoBrown #heritage #family #pride #exemplars #ancestors

"The Trees by Jericho Brown

In my front yard live three crape myrtles, crying trees We once called them, not the shadiest but soothing During a break from work in the heat, their cool sweat

Falling into us. I don't want to make more of it. I'd like to let these spindly things be Since my gift for transformation here proves

Useless now that I know everyone moves the same Whether moving in tears or moving To punch my face. A crape myrtle is

A crape myrtle. Three is a family. It is winter. They are bare. It's not that I love them Every day. It's that I love them anyway."

-- "The Tradition", page 19

#JerichoBrown #QueerPoetry #BlackPoetry #TodaysPoem #Poetry #BookWyrm

"HeLa by Jericho Brown for Henrietta Lacks

I won't die. I keep white men up at night. I come from the deepest basin they know. They want to watch me grow so they took me from Mama. When they hold me close, it's always so cold, but when Sister came to see me the other day, she kissed me & called me beautiful & I was warm again, like it always was with Mama, just for a little while. Yemoja olodo awoye Yemoja...

I—two, one hundred, three million, legion, spawn of gall, glory of silt gone sour—make the slack-jawed bow & wish they could drink from my ever-after. Now these men have brought women friends to look at me. They say I'm getting stronger every day. They want me to tell them my secrets, but I don't know what they mean. How can I explain who I am if they can't see, after looking at me? They call me HeLa. Healer. Mama would be proud to know we got healing in us. I hope she understands I didn't want to go... Yemoja Orisha Orisha Yemoja fun me lowo. Asé. Asé."

-- "The Tradition", page 27

#JerichoBrown #QueerPoetry #BlackPoetry #TodaysPoem #Poetry #BookWyrm

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.

Jericho Brown
Bullet Points

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/152728/bullet-points

#TodaysPoem #Poem #Poetry #JerichoBrown