The Tradition

The Poetry Book Society Choice
'To read Jericho Brown's poems is to encounter devastating genius.' Claudia Rankine
Jericho Brown follows the success of his prize-winning The New Testament with a fearless and daring new collection. The Tradition examines the normalization of evil and of its history, from a perspective at once political and individual, societal and intimate. The questions Brown poses go directly to the heart of our most human concerns: What is safety? Where does freedom truly lie? Poems about fatherhood, blackness, queerness, legacy, trauma are all realized with a masterful clarity, and his invention of the 'duplex' - a blend of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues - bears witness to a rare and formidable formal skill. The Tradition is a timely, necessary book from a poet recognized as one of the most vital and incisive at work today.
'His lyrics are memorable, muscular, majestic . . . Brown's poems are living on the page.' Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
'One of the most luminous and courageous voices I have read in a long, long time.' US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, author of Wade in the Water
'Exquisite, incisive, as full of the spirit as the soil, the breath and the body, The Tradition is today's essential poetry.' John Keene, author of Counternarratives

Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before earning his PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. His first book, Please, won the American Book Award. The New Testament was winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, 2015. He received the Pultizer Prize for Poetry in 2020. He teaches at Emory University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.