About Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown, born Nelson Demery III in 1976 in Shreveport, Louisiana, is an African-American poet and one of the most eloquent and innovative figures in contemporary American poetry. He adopted his Pen Name when coming out, affirming his creative freedom and identity. His work, marked by a bold exploration of identity, race, sexuality and structural violence, combines the lyrical sensitivity of sonnets with uncompromising social commitment. A graduate of the University of Dillard, then an MFA of the Iowa Writers “Workshop and a PhD in Creative Writing, Brown built a career that was both academic and artistic that established him as one of the major voices of contemporary African-American poetry. In 2011, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Jubilat, The Nation, New England Review, The New Republic, Oxford American, The New Yorker, Enkare Review, and The Best American Poetry. He is associate editor of the journal Calaloo. His first book, Please, published by New Issues poetry & Prose in 2008 won the American Book Award. His most recent collection of poetry, The New Testament published by Copper Canyon Press in 2014 won the 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and continues his study of issues of race, masculinity and sexuality, often returning to the texts of the Bible.
Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, he combines teaching and literary commitment, guiding a new generation towards writing that is both demanding and politically conscious. Previously, he worked as a speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans.
Major Works and Awards: What is “The Tradition” about ?
His first collection, Please (2008), already reveals his talent for transforming the intimate into the universal. The poem “Track” explores the vulnerability of a black body confronted with police brutality, while “Prayer of the Backhanded” combines domestic violence and the quest for redemption, all carried by a language both raw and musical.With The New Testament (2014), Brown deepens his questioning of the intersections between faith, love and marginality. The poem “The Interrogation” questions the boundaries between oppressor and oppressed, while “Hustle” celebrates the resilience of black queer bodies, mixing eroticism and spirituality. This collection won him the American Book Award in 2015.
However, it is his collection “The Tradition” (2019), crowned by the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2020, that consecrates his genius. The eponymous title, “The Tradition,” juxtaposes the beauty of flowers and the violent history of America, a metaphor spun from a country full of contradictions. The poem “Duplex,” the centerpiece of the collection, embodies its formal innovation: a hybrid between sonnet, blues and ghazal, where verses reflect and respond, creating a hypnotic echo.
The Poetic Style between Tradition and Subversion of Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown reinvents classical forms to instill a radical modernity. His invention of the “duplex” symbolizes this approach — a structure in 14 lines, where each couplet resonates with the previous one — weaving a dialogue between repetition and variation. This hybrid poem, halfway between the sonnet and the blues, becomes a vehicle to explore the contradictions of identity, systemic violence and the search for love in a fractured world. Brown mixes the metric elegance of English tradition with the African-American rhythm, creating a language that is both chiseled and incantatory. His poetry, traversed by wounds and light, defies historical silences while celebrating the resilience of marginalized bodies.Browse all poems and texts published on Jericho Brown
I've always said that you know you're a poet when you type an em dash and you hit the delete button, and you type a colon and you hit the delete button, and you type an em dash and you hit the delete button, and you type a colon and you hit the delete button. If you can do that for about three hours straight, trying to figure out which one is the best one, if you can do that for three hours and call that a good time, then you're probably a poet.
