#Poetry Jericho Brown

• Author: Jericho Brown (1976)
  
• Title: The Tradition
  
• Published: 2019
  
• Trivia: I liked 29 poems of total 52 = 55 %  (good score)
  
• 2020 winner Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
• 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, finalist
• 2019 National Book Award for Poetry, longlist
• List of Challenges 2021
• Monthly plan
• #PoetryMonth (April 2021)
  

 

Conclusion:

1. This  book is said to be
2. …one of the best collection of poems
3. by a living poet.
4. Jericho Brown’s poems are works of art and
5. …they deserve some of my intense reading time.
6. It took me 2 days to research and read 52 poems.
7. I learned about Brown’s abusive father and  the poet’s
8. struggle to be a black gay man.
9. I hope the notes I provided may
10. …help you when reading my favorite poems.
11. #MustRead

 

Quickscan:

1. 5 Duplex poems are a creation of Jericho Brown (JB).
2. The structure is unique: the last word of a stanza
3. ….in the last word on the first next line!
4. It feels like a puzzel!

 

Quickscan:

1. Certain poems are inspired by people, books, art.
2. I needed to read the ‘backstory’ in wikipedia 
3. …so I  could understand the poems. 
4. I’ve included links to information regarding these poems.
5. Favorite: ” After Another Country”  (novel by James Baldwin, 1962)

 

Quickscan:

1. The title poem is “The Tradition“.
2. After my first reading I still did not know what it was!
3. I needed to do some research.
4. Tradition is: 
5. joy of gardening,  police violence, remembering victims of police violence.

 

Favorites:

Part 1:

• Ganymede – myth about Ganymede   
  
• As a Human Being  –  trying to stand up to father…..son-father relationship.
• The Tradition – see quickscan
• Hero – trying to impress mother….  son-mother relationship
• After Another Country – Another Country main character Rufus Scott 
• The Water Lilies – image  water lilies = white people
• Foreday in the Morning – morining glories…mother never sees them, she’s up early to work.
• The Card Tables – love the personification of simpel ‘card tables’, funny!
• Bullet Points – Sandra Bland (wikipedia) 
• Duplex  – abuse-father
  
• The Trees – lovely nature poem..the crape myrtle trees
• A Young Man – father watching teen-age son be a playground guardian for little sister

 

Part 2:

• Duplex – abuse-father
• Riddle – Emmett Till (wikipedia)  – powerful
• Correspondence – The Jerome Project by Titus Kaphar  
• Night Shift – painful intimacies of domestic abuse
• Shovel – vivd poem, no  hidden meaning…just pick up the body and bury it
• Dear Whiteness – letter to “whiteness” …who the speaker is sleeping with
• Entertainment Industry – issues of gun control and mass shootings
• Layover – account of an assault, a pant-like stream-of-consciousness

 

Part 3:

• Duplex – abuse-father
• Of My Fury – love poem
• The Virus  – HIV
• Deliverance – remembering childhood Sundays
• Dark – painfully candid as JB reproaches himself
• Duplex  – abuse-father
• Cakewalk – optimism between to old lovers despite HIV
• Stand – love and pain is inseparable, there is joy to be found  within black bodies
• Duplex: Cento – abuse-father