Description
In this daring collection, Jericho Brown traces how harm becomes ordinary—how “evil” is normalized through history, language, and the stories a nation tells itself. Moving between intimate lyric scenes and mythic, pastoral imaginings, the poems follow questions of safety, freedom, and belonging as they collide with fatherhood, legacy, Blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma. With his signature formal invention of the duplex—blending sonnet, ghazal, and blues—Brown turns personal memory into a rigorous, politically charged meditation on survival and contradiction. The result is a relentless, clarifying body of work that asks what we inherit, what we endure, and what it means to keep living when the world insists on repeating its worst patterns.
Available Editions
paperback
Copper Canyon Press
Published Jun 18, 2019
77 pages
ISBN: 9781619321953
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Community Reviews(1)
once again i'm not sure it's fair to rate a book on a scale of 5 when it's literally therapy trauma dump for the author. i did like this more than “milk and honey” by rupi kaur, but marginally so. the author sort of hates himself too much to make poetry where we can sympathize with his plight because in his poetic allegories, he references untenable crimes he attributes to himself and carnal jealousy over rabbits procreating. there were moments where i felt like i saw the author and others where words piled up like a barricade to make me turn away.
Details
First Published
2019
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for The Tradition by Jericho Brown.