Jericho Brown is one of the most powerful contemporary American poets, known for poems that are emotionally intense, politically sharp, and musically rich.
Jericho Brown’s poems often explore Black identity, masculinity, sexuality, love, trauma, and faith. He writes with great honesty about the Black body—its beauty, vulnerability, and the violence imposed on it by society. Many of his poems confront racism and police brutality, but they do so through personal, intimate moments, not slogans.
One of Brown’s major contributions to poetry is the “duplex” form, which blends elements of the sonnet, ghazal, and blues. This form repeats lines in a way that mirrors memory, grief, and obsession, creating a haunting emotional rhythm.
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His language is lyrical yet direct—simple words carry deep emotional weight. Brown often mixes tenderness with anger, desire with fear, showing how love and pain exist together. Religious imagery appears frequently, reflecting his Southern background and his complicated relationship with Christianity.
- His most famous collection, The Tradition (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry), examines how violence becomes normalized in American life while beauty continues to exist alongside it. The poems ask difficult moral questions without offering easy answers.
- Overall, Jericho Brown’s poetry is courageous and intimate. It challenges readers to face uncomfortable truths while reminding them that tenderness and love are forms of resistance.
The Tradition
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning
Names in heat, in elements classical
Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.
Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will
Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter
On this planet than when our dead fathers
Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.
Men like me and my brothers filmed what we
Planted for proof we existed before
Too late, sped the video to see blossoms
Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems
Where the world ends, everything cut down.
John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
Crossing
The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.
Odd Jobs
I spent what light Saturday sent sweating
And learned to cuss cutting grass for women
Kind enough to say they couldn't tell the damned
Difference between their mowed lawns
And their vacuumed carpets just before
Handing over a five-dollar bill rolled tighter
Than a joint and asking me in to change
A few light bulbs. I called those women old
Because they wouldn't move out of a chair
Without my help or walk without a hand
At the base of their backs. I called them
Old, and they must have been; they're all dead
Now, dead and in the earth I once tended.
The loneliest people have the earth to love
And not one friend their own age-only
Mothers to baby them and big sisters to boss
Them around, women they want to please
And pray for the chance to say please to.
I don't do that kind of work anymore. My job
Is to look at the childhood I hated and say
I once had something to do with my hands.
