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Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Born Nelson Demery III and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Brown later changed his name and graduated from Dillard University, where he was initiated as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.
Source: https://www.jerichobrown.com/
Source: https://www.jerichobrown.com/
The Tradition
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thoughtFingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learningNames in heat, in elements classicalPhilosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the willOf the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotterOn this planet than when our dead fathersWiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.Men like me and my brothers filmed what wePlanted for proof we existed beforeToo late, sped the video to see blossomsBrought in seconds, colors you expect in poemsWhere the world ends, everything cut down.John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
from The Tradition (2019)
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thoughtFingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learningNames in heat, in elements classicalPhilosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the willOf the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotterOn this planet than when our dead fathersWiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.Men like me and my brothers filmed what wePlanted for proof we existed beforeToo late, sped the video to see blossomsBrought in seconds, colors you expect in poemsWhere the world ends, everything cut down.John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
from The Tradition (2019)
Water Lilies
They open in the day and close at night.They are good at appearances. They are white.I judge them, judge the study they makeOf themselves, aspirational beings, fakeIf you ask me. If you ask me, I’ll say no,Thank you, I don’t need to watch what goesOnly imagining itself seen, don’t needTo see them yawn their thin mouths and feed
On light, absolute and unmoved. They remindMe of black people who see the movieAbout slaves and exit saying how they wouldHave fought to whip Legree with his own whipAnd walked away from the plantation,Their eyes raised to the sun, without going blind.
from The Tradition (2019)
They open in the day and close at night.They are good at appearances. They are white.I judge them, judge the study they makeOf themselves, aspirational beings, fakeIf you ask me. If you ask me, I’ll say no,Thank you, I don’t need to watch what goesOnly imagining itself seen, don’t needTo see them yawn their thin mouths and feed
On light, absolute and unmoved. They remindMe of black people who see the movieAbout slaves and exit saying how they wouldHave fought to whip Legree with his own whipAnd walked away from the plantation,Their eyes raised to the sun, without going blind.
from The Tradition (2019)
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