A review by omniscientreader
The New Testament by Jericho Brown

3.75

 I really like this book, the writing is extremely gorgeous. But, i find most of the poems hard to comprehend—i really don't know, maybe it's because im still young. i genuinely don't know. i would really like to reread this next time and maybe at that time i will finally be able to understand what the poem speaks.

and i would like to share passages from this book that i found compelling and revolutionary

I let a man touch me until I bled,
Until my blood met his hunger

In that world, I was a black man.
Now, the bridge burns and I
Am as absent as what fire
Leaves behind.

Tell me that though the world ends us,
Lover, it cannot end our love
Of narrative. Don’t you have a story
For me?—like the one you tell

We talk about God
Because we want to speak
In metaphors.

Water? Is it blood that binds
Brothers? Or is it the Mississippi
Running through the fattest vein
Of America? When I say home,

Loneliness
Is a practice. Like medicine.
Like law,

We wrote our own Bible
And got thrown out of church.

I imagine
Someone who desires any
Worn piece of man must be
Willing to shoot or be shot.

Yes, she read the Bible,
Read all about war in heaven.