The Tradition

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award

Jericho Brown's daring book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown's poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we've become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive. Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning clarity by Brown's mastery, and his invention of the duplex - a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues - is testament to his formal skill. The Tradition is a cutting and necessary collection, relentless in its quest for survival while reveling in a celebration of contradiction.

©2019 Jericho Brown (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Brilliant and moving

Jericho Brown has such a unique voice and way of captivating a listener; its timbre and the language of his work are outstanding.

Poetry

If poetry/ poetry slam is your think you will like it. Very emotional and black empowerment. A good listen

The Voice

I heard another narration of this book by someone else but it is nothing like hearing Jericho Brown narrate his own book. His voice is a cross between James Earle Jones’ deep baritone and James Baldwin’s high, raspy voice—very distinctive. Even though I heard these poems before, I learned more nuance when Brown narrates his own poems, infusing them with rhythm, depth, sharpness another narrator cannot match. I definitely recommend this book.