A review by dukegregory
The Tradition by Jericho Brown

4.0

I'm not someone that reads poetry consistently. I predominantly read poems under duress, under curriculum constraints, under one-off recommendations, and so I felt that it would be enlightening to read one of the more acclaimed collections of the last year, and I was not let down. Jericho Brown has such a grasp of language, inciting intergenerational rage, sardonic laughs, voyeuristic blushes, and more, sometimes within the same poem. As a black gay man who's openly HIV-positive, he sculpts formalistically diverse works out of those subjectivities. Those identities serve as his slabs of clay which he whips, cracks, scrapes, caresses. Really lovely. I only dropped a star because some poems went over my head or left me neutral, but more should read it. Quite worthwhile. Brown makes me interested in getting into more poetry whenever it feels right in the coming future.