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Your favorite Heart.Wants.Books reviewers are soon to begin at the very beginning on the adventure of rereading the entire catalog of Maas Distraction starting with the Throne of Glass series.  If you love ACOTAR, you need to join in this adventure with us, don’t ask, just trust, because thar be spoilers if we explain.  Maybe they’ll be a pop-up Virtual Book Club, or even a few between now and February, but only if you let us know you want to join in the fun.  

We don’t often read poetry around here, but when we were planning out our June and looking to be sure we included all the diversity we wanted to celebrate (the rest of) Pride Month, and were presented with a Pulitzer Prize winning text we could both easily access (via the library, nothing illegal to see here), it was an easy yes.  

The Tradition by Jericho Brown is a collection of poetry that tells a story in fits and starts, but really digs into themes of real life, the meanings of home and family, the Black experience, hurt people hurting others, the darkness of racism and the history that still desperately needs cleaning up, especially in the US.  As one (or maybe just I) expects from poetry, and a Pulitzer winner, the turn of phrase is stupendous, the imagery is lush, and the feelings are brilliantly displayed on the page.  

Even with all the heavy themes, there is a strong sense of family and connectedness in The Tradition by Jericho Brown that I really enjoyed.  The poems were mostly windows with bits of mirror scattered throughout, as one expects given the differences in my lived experiences and those of Brown.  One mirror I particularly enjoyed is:

Power under a quilt that won’t unravel, though 

I never met the woman who sewed it

Or the woman for whom it was a gift 

Before it finally came to me.

While “After Avery R. Young” does discuss the Black experience, these lines remind me of the power of the stories we tell and the work we can put into our families and should put into the pieces that are handed down, like the quilts I also have sewn by women I either never met or met decades ago, meant for women who’ve also long since passed.  Those quilts will stand the test of time for years to come, as will the lessons of love, kindness, and justice we teach our children, especially children who learn to use their privilege to help the voices of those with less be heard and heeded by more and more people.  

The Tradition by Jericho Brown was an amazing reading experience, but one I’m not likely to reread (other than in preparation for this review).  I’m giving it 4 solid stars.  I am aware of the accolades of the text, but that doesn’t mean it’s the text for me, which is how I award stars.  I highly suggest anyone and everyone read The Tradition.  It’s short, accessible, and packs a gorgeous punch in a few (less than 100) pages.

What book have you stumbled upon and adored?

~Nikki 

Jericho Brown is a writer, born to the name of his father and grandfather – a name he doesn’t use and I don’t need to call out here – from Shreveport, Louisiana. He holds degrees from Dillard University (Bachelors), University of New Orleans (MFA), and University of Houston (Ph.D). He has taught at other notable schools and conferences such as San Diego University, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and is currently a professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta. Brown, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, has collected such accolades and awards as a 2009 American Book Award, 2010 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Tradition. His two other long form works are 2008’s Please, a book of poetry and prose, and 2014’s book of poetry, The New Testament. His poetry has also been featured in such publications as The New Yorker, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, TIME Magazine, and The Paris Review. He also serves as poetry editor for The Believer.

I got a lot more out of The Tradition when I read this description on Brown’s website: “The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive.” The three parts of the book, I think, generally fit with a theme of age, childhood, young adulthood, and adulthood, but it’s not as simple as that either. Maybe the themes are naivete, understanding, and forgiveness. And maybe it’s none of those things either. They probably don’t need or deserve a label.

Another important note found in the description for The Tradition on Brown’s website is that he is the inventory of ‘the duplex’ – “a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues—is an all-out exhibition of formal skill.” The interwebz gives the best explanation of the duplex’s structure: “The poem starts with a couplet, then the second line repeats and the poet adds a new line, following this structure until seven couplets form the poem. The last line of the poem repeats the first line, with an increased or changed resonance that the rest of the poem’s context provides.” Re-reading these poems with the understanding of the structure brings new and deeper meaning to each of them.

I am also giving this poetry collection a four-star review. The Tradition gives us short yet poignant glimpses into Jericho Brown’s deep well of emotion and experience. What a gift it is to be given this window into Black gay manhood and a mirror into the American human experience. I am definitely willing to read his other works when looking to enrich my reading life.

~Ashley

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