Jericho Brown: Changing the Poetic Landscape

Photo courtesy of Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is a renowned poet and artist, as well as a newly-honored Pulitzer Prize winner. In his interview with Love to All Project, he explores his journey finding his voice in his craft, gaining inspiration from other artists, and what the world of poetry means to him.

LTA: Could you briefly introduce yourself and explain what you do?

My name is Jericho Brown. I’m a poet, which means I use language to change the lense with which people view the world. With my poems, I hope to use experiences and things that I know to create word-objects; I think of them as machines that alter our perceptions. 

LTA: How and why did you get started in writing and poetry? 

How and why? The “why” is weird. I think I was raised in a family where you couldn’t really speak, and I had things to say. If you write things down, they can remain private in certain ways, so I had an early relationship with writing once I learned to write as a kid. I realized that, “Oh! If I write something down, people kinda leave me alone.” No matter what I was writing down as a kid, if I was writing, my parents, seeing that, would attribute that to an indication that I was smart and should be left to write whatever I was writing—and they never checked what that was. I think that’s part of the “why,” and I’ve always been turned on by language. When I was a kid, I loved things that rhymed. I loved music, I loved the lyrics to songs. I loved hearing my grandmother tell stories. I was always interested in how the stories were told, even more than I was with what happened in the story. 

LTA: How would you say writing and poetry have allowed you to explore your sexuality and its intersection with the other aspects of your identity? 

I would say that you’re not going to be any good at anything unless you use all of what you have, particularly as a poet, and so it’s been very important to me to equalize all of my experiences. That includes desire. That includes that which is erotic. That includes my sexuality. That includes attraction. When I’m writing and those things come up, I have to deal with them. Part of what I like to do is let the text lead me to what needs to be said next, and sometimes what needs to be said next is a thing that reveals something about my sexuality, and I have to be comfortable with making that revelation the same way I would be comfortable making a revelation about a fact I know about the Supreme or a tree. 

LTA: Would you say that you used art to come to find yourself? 

Well I do think of my identity as “Poet,” and I think it’s helpful for us to think about what we want to do in terms of identity. And if we can think that way, we’re in a position where we can think about what goes on is what we do. 

Poetry is a community, so you add that which is community-minded and community-oriented.

– JERICHO BROWN

LTA: From a technical standpoint, in your writing, you introduced a new poetic form called the “Duplex,” which draws inspiration from poetic forms that have come before it. Can you speak a little about the creation of the duplex poem and its structural significance to your work? 

I was thinking about ghazals, sonnets, the blues and couplets, and I was trying to put those thoughts together. In the process of doing that, I came up with this form that speaks to some of my troubles being in the world. You know, it’s not one thing, it’s not another, and yet it’s all of those things at once—and I feel that way. I wanted to make something that was mine and that also was a contribution to poetry, something to add. The wonderful thing about poetry is that you can always add. You add with your poetry, and you add with your work, you know? Poetry is a community, so you add that which is community-minded and community-oriented. In a way, the creation of a form, yes it’s your poetry, but in another way, it’s an addition to the community because it introduces another way in which people can make their own poem or think about poetics. 

LTA: Can you speak a bit about the covers of your poetry collection? Do they have specific significance outside of their beauty? 

Yes, I think I’ve been really lucky for all three covers. The first book was a little different in that someone actually read the collection and then designed the cover of the book, and I loved the fact that the first book is orange because it’s my favorite color. But I also think that it enchants the act of speaking and that mouth on the first cover gives us a first voice, and I like that. In the case of the second and third books, The New Testament and The Tradition, I was really fortunate to find these beautiful paintings which I was looking at visual art online—I’m always looking at visual art when I can—that I almost feel like they were made for them. When you read The Tradition and you look at that cover, it almost feels as if that cover was made for my book. Same thing goes for the second book. The theme of brotherhood goes through the book, and the idea that “that which is tender can also turn violent,” and I think that's really what comes through in that painting.

LTA: Switching gears a bit, the voices of queer people and people of color have historically been marginalized and overshadowed both in and out of the literary world. As a poet, how did you come to find your voice in a profession void of voices like yours? 

I think I would first have to deal with the word ‘void.’ My first book came out in 2008, so in a way, there wasn’t a void…  I didn’t know where to look, and I think that often is what happens with queer people and queer poets. It is true that it wasn’t as obvious to me where to look. You’re over and over again given the same poetry by the same people, and it isn’t until you invest yourself in poetry in a more full way that you’re able to find other people’s work. And I knew about poets, particularly poets who had a relationship to performance, like Essex Hemphill. I knew about him by the time I graduated college, and I think knowing about him led me to other poets… So I found the queer poets at about the same time there would’ve been a void, but there was never really a void. It was just a matter of me looking. When I wasn’t looking, it wasn’t there, but as soon as I started looking, it was beautiful. I never think of myself as “the one and only” or “the greatest.” I think I’m good, and I know a lot of people don’t say that, but I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t get any pleasure out of it, and the pleasure would have to be that I was good at it. I think you hit certain notes the same way a singer hits certain notes, and the singer knows then that they’re doing something only they can do. In the same way, I know that I’m doing something only I can do when I write my poems, but I also understand myself as giving, as in I’m a part of a pantheon and a history and a tradition, a long tradition, of queer poets. So I didn’t feel the same fear that a lot of poets must’ve felt because I had those poets. I did feel a lot of fear, but it wasn’t that fear. And I pretty quickly realized that I could write whatever I wanted, and nobody from that other part of my life who didn’t know I was gay would ever see it anyway because they were interested, and by the time they would’ve seen it, I was much more comfortable with myself as a gay man.

LTA: As you’ve mentioned this idea of giving, do you hope to bring anything specific to the writing world by adding your voice? 

Yes, and I could attempt to name whatever that is, but I think that’s better left to other people. I think there’s very clearly a difference between me and John King and Ronaldo Wilson and Ricky Larensus and Carl Phillips. I don’t think any of us are writing poems that are like anyone else’s poems, you know? So yes, I think that. 

LTA: Do you have any advice for queer youth that are looking to explore their identity through art, writing or poetry? 

Yes—really just to enjoy it. Not just the enjoyment of doing it, but to enjoy experiencing it. The more you enjoy experiencing it, the more you read, the more you go to read, the more you go to workshops, the more you hang out with poets, the more you make it a part of your community, the more you can figure out who you are and what you give to that community and what your role is. Everybody’s got to do their thing. 

Make sure to check out Jericho’s new book, The Tradition! It was selected as the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Interviewed by Adelaide Graham

Written by Maureena Murphy

Edited by Morgan Lee

May 2020