(calm music) - (Sueann) Hi, I'm Sueann Ramella.

There are proverbial poems full of nature, like "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, and then poems that bring comfort because they describe the unease that you feel in a moment, but salted with a little bit of hope, like Kitty O'Meara's "And the People Stayed Home" that was written about the coronavirus pandemic.

And then there are poems that reach deep into your heart and shake you out of the bubble.

Jericho Brown's poetry does that.

His book, "The Tradition," won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

It leaves you moved and breathless.

Find out about his writing journey, how he got his name, and why he loves librarians, in this episode of "Traverse Talks."

(calm music) I am so thankful that I got to read your book of poems, "Tradition," and I just wanna shout out to the Pullman Neill Public Library in Whitman county, Washington, - (Jericho) Oh, wow.

- (Sueann) which is super rural, for having this book available.

- (Jericho) Yeah, I love libraries.

- (Sueann) Oh, I love libraries.

- (Jericho) They're the best places, and librarians are angels on earth.

- (Sueann) Aren't they?

- (Jericho) I thank God for them every day.

Librarians saved my life when I was a kid, when I was first learning to read.

I spent a lot of time in libraries, and librarians introduced me to poetry.

And they would have stacks of books there, waiting for me and my sister when we would get to the library.

So many of the poets that I love today, I was introduced to by librarians.

So, yeah, I love librarians and I love libraries.

- (Sueann) That just warms my heart.

- (Jericho) The space is for thinking.

- (Sueann) Do you love the way the libraries smell?

- (Jericho) I hadn't thought about the way it smells, I guess.

(laughs) - (Sueann) All the book smells.

- (Jericho) I do like the smell of old books.

- (Sueann) I know.

Yeah.

New ones are nice to smell too, sometimes.

- (Sueann) Just like flip it open, get that breeze.

All right, Tell us about your writing journey from 2008 until now.

And how have you grown and developed over the years?

- (Jericho) Yeah, I just think when I was first starting to write, I wanted to make up home in any poem that I could possibly make.

I was sort of thinking about poems as performances, little bitty performances.

You know how like if you watch a TV show or an award show, as opposed to seeing a concert, you see a singer sing one song.

And I kept thinking of a book of poetry as one song after one song after one song and going on and on.

And I think now, I don't think that's left me.

I am still interested in that lyric, that one song embodied in each poem, but I'm also much more interested in telling the truth and making sure that I'm telling the truth.

And I think that's the big difference between where I started and where I am now, whenever I'm revising the poems, I'm also asking myself what I had to say and whether or not I said it right.

And whether or not I told the truth.

And that's really what I hope I'm doing in this book in a way that I may have done intuitively or instinctually in the first two books, but much more purposefully in this book.

- (Sueann) You honed your craft.

- (Jericho) I hope so.

Yeah.

- (Sueann) So speaking for myself, cause I'm sure you get many different reactions.

It takes me places so quickly and I'm there in a moment.

And then I tear up because I feel like that I'm whisked away and left catching my breath and feeling deeply about this person I had not met, who put me in a space with so many feelings.

Now you have a few poems that touch on your childhood and your parents, and there's still love there, but there's also abuse.

And so there's many different feelings.

Just reading your poetry is, I don't mean this in a bad way, Emotionally exhausting.

- (Jericho) Oh good - (Sueann) Oh, it's so good.

I didn't want it to be offended.

- (Jericho) That's a good thing.

How do you feel?

I mean, you once said that when you write a poem, you're the one in dire straits.

So what's it like when you're done with a piece?

- Well, I usually give myself a little bit of a party when I have a good writing day or when I finished a poem.

I mean, it's not like I write a poem every day.

I'm working on poems every day, But when I feel that a poem is done or has come so close to done that I see its end, then I want to give myself something.

And so I might knock off for the rest of the day or I might have a milkshake or I might eat some pizza, usually fun for me arrives in the form of food I shouldn't be having Or, you know, I'll go out.

I mean, you know, it depends on what happens.

I've learned over time that it's a good idea to celebrate even the smallest of accomplishments.

But me having a poem then is a very big accomplishment since I'm a poet, you know.

- (Sueann) I'm glad to hear that.

I think more people need to treat themselves after they finished something.

- (Jericho) Good idea.

- (Sueann) Yeah.

- (Jericho) Yeah, it's a good idea.

- (Sueann) All right.

So writing and poetry has been an outlet for you to express yourself.

So before that, before you discovered writing, how did you express yourself?

- (Jericho) I don't know that I was allowed to express myself.

I spent a lot of time in the church where I grew up.

I grew up in a black church.

For my parents it was very important that we be there every Sunday, every Wednesday night, and then another day of the week for whatever rehearsal whether it was choir, usher board, or something like that.

So I think most of the expression I had, I had through religion and through that church, which taught me a lot about speaking because all of the speaking there was so special.

Everybody's in order at church, you know, taught me about singing, taught me about interactions between people.

So I think that was probably the beginning of expression for me.

A lot of people don't know this, but when you grow up in church, a part of what the evangelical movement has at its basis, the fact that it's the world running alongside of the world.

So if you're knee deep in your church life, then you can go to the church picnic, You can be in the debate team, you could be on the sewing team, You could be in home-ec, you could be on the basketball team, you know, everything you have in this so-called world that we live exists in this microcosm of the church.

And there were also these competitions, you know, you could be in drill team, you go to district drill team competition, state drill team competition, national drill team competition, all around all of these churches that are united in some way.

And so I think most of my life, up until I found poetry and even maybe right after I found poetry, was really just about expressing myself in those ways.

- (Sueann) In those realms, those rails.

I had a discussion once where I was like religion for me, I grew up in a non-denominational evangelical church, Casey Treat what's his name, big church.

We tried really hard to make good music, but.

- (Jericho) That's hilarious But they're like braces, not learning how to walk this way, the way we want you to walk.

And then when the braces come off, what was that like for you?

When the braces came off?

- (Jericho) Well, you know, the braces are still coming off.

They don't, hopefully they never stop coming off.

I think freedom is something ongoing and something I'm learning every day.

My life was saved by poetry.

And I understand that just like there's a guide in the church, there must be a guide in poetry because it's poems.

I wasn't in church.

I was reading a book of poems when I decided to live and not die.

I was reading a book of poems that felt like secrets to me.

It was a book by a writer named Essex Hemphill, actually.

And I was reading poems as an undergraduate on a fellowship for the summer in the same school where I'm a college professor now at Emory university.

And I was reading his poems and I was afraid somebody caught me reading them.

I kept feeling like I was reading these secrets and I kept looking over my shoulder.

And me understanding that poems could do that, could keep me alive in that way, to give me something to look forward to, was probably the first fit of freedom that I had because I understood that this thing I always wanted to do could make people feel this way.

I enjoyed poetry, but I had never been saved by them in that way before.

And so I understood if that could happen to me, I could make that happen for somebody else.

So maybe that's when it started when I was, you know, I guess I was 19 or 20 years old, had just pledged a fraternity.

So it was, you know, pretty early in my life, when I think about it halfway through my life.

I used to work as a speech writer for the mayor of New Orleans, which in many ways was very freeing because I was finally able to have sort of, kind of a backstage political voice.

But also I was in a brace because I was writing speeches, You know?

And the thing about speeches is that you have to stay on message.

And when you're writing a poem, you don't even know what the message is.

You find that out as you are writing it.

So, you know, over time I went and I got a graduate degree, MFA and PhD degrees.

And I think that also led to a certain kind of freedom, but then, you know, institutions have their own laws and their own braces.

So even going to school or being a professor, there are certain rules you end up following that you find ways to rebel against.

So I think what I'm trying to say is that I think that's ongoing or has been ongoing.

And I hope it continues to be.

- (Sueann) I Think it takes a certain type of creativity and intelligence to be very creative within boundaries.

And then when those boundaries, if ever change are removed, you just expand further out creativity.

In the poem Hustle, you wrote, "In our house, live three men with one name and all three fought or ran.

I left Nelson Demery III for Jericho Brown, a name I earned in prison."

Tell me about that time in your life and what it means to you now.

- (Jericho) Well, those lines, I mean, they're quite honestly about the fact that I grew up a third and I had a father and a grandfather with the same name, which was always strange.

- (Sueann) You would see his name everywhere.

- (Jericho) Yeah, it was funny when my poems first started coming out, part of the reason I changed my name was the fact that they had this name on them that I didn't feel like it was completely mine.

And I wanted a name that I knew was only my name on my poems.

Maybe I wouldn't feel that way now, but at the time it was very important to me to be able to stake a claim on my own work as mine and not as the result of in many ways they are the result, but I didn't need that.

I needed to see them as mine and not as the result of my father or my grandfather.

And so changing my name and seeing a new name on them, help free me in a lot of ways, because then first of all, I could create this brand new life based around this person that I had become, but also that person could write Nelson Demery's stories without feeling any kind of shame or guilt about them.

- (Sueann) Oh, my goodness.

- (Jericho) because he was a new person.

So I think that's part of what that time was about.

And I think becoming Jericho Brown is part of what I mean by that in that line is that becoming Jericho brown is what released me from that prison.

- (Sueann) And I know this story is out there already, but just for those who listen to the podcast, can you tell us how you came up with Jericho?

- (Jericho) Oh, I was having this dream.

I was living in New Orleans at the time.

And I had this dream that I was in a waiting room full of men.

And it was very crowded and there was a woman who was calling names for people to go into the door, just beyond her.

And she got to the name Jericho.

And every time she would say the name, more people would come in the room, but Jericho would never like actually go to the door.

So I got up and I said, I'll be Jericho.

And I walked through the door and then I woke up and that night I met somebody, somebody asked me my name and I told him my name was Jericho.

And they said to me, - (Sueann) the biblical reference.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

So you're straightly shut up.

And I'm like, what?

And they're like, it literally means straightly shut up.

You don't know that?

And he tells me it's loosely translated defense or good smelling.

So he gives me all of these translations of the word Jericho.

And I'm like, what are the chances of meeting somebody the same night that I have this dream?

You know?

So I decided then that I changed my name to Jericho.

- (Sueann) Auspicious.

Wonderful.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

- (Sueann) So there are cultures where changing your name is part of just growing up, not so much in mainstream America.

Would you recommend to people that they change their name?

- (Jericho) I don't know if I would recommend it, but I recommend that you be happy.

So if changing your name is going to somehow be a catalyst, if you imagine changing your name is going to be a catalyst for your happiness, or if you don't like the way your name sounds now.

Yeah, sure.

Change it.

Why not?

I think it's a good idea to do what you need to do for you and that you recognize what you need to do for you and not what you need to do to control other people.

Do you know what I mean?

It seems to me that changing one's name is definitely something you can do that doesn't control or put boundaries around, limitations around other people's lives.

- (Sueann) Oh yeah.

And oh, this thought came to me that there some people in our lives who go through changes, some of them physical, some of them just life changes.

And they've they ask you to please call me by my new name.

And I feel like it's important for people to respect that and not take it personally that Bob is now Barbara.

Or I had a friend once named Trinley, who used to be a Catherine and then she, but she became Buddhist and changed her name.

And her family had a hard time with that.

Did your family have a hard time with your name?

- No.

They think it's funny.

They don't call me that.

And I don't mind when people from my past called me Trey.

I mean, my family always called me Trey, which was a nickname anyway, so I wouldn't have minded that, you know, everyone I went to school like high school with called me Nelson.

And when I see them again, they they'll say Nelson and I don't stop them to tell them my name is Jericho now because they knew me as Nelson, And I don't mind that.

My name is Nelson.

Like I don't mind that, at this point in my life, I don't mind that that's a facet of who I once was.

- (Sueann) I'm there.

Yeah.

- (Jericho) So, no, I don't really get bothered by that.

My family didn't know that my name was Jericho until my PhD.

I was the commencement speaker at my own PhD graduation, which is very hilarious every time I think about it.

- (Sueann) Amazing.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

I think I just realized that in saying that that happened.

It's very funny, but my parents, that's when they found out, cause it said on the program, Nelson, open quotations, Jericho Brown, closed quotations, Demery III So I had this long name, this long name on my graduation program.

And I remember they made jokes about it.

Like they're still making jokes.

I had a PhD a long time ago and they're still making jokes, when they see me, they say Jericho brown, you know, and everybody starts laughing.

So they actually think it's funny, so.

- (Sueann) Family, they keep us grounded.

- (Jericho) Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

- (Sueann) speaking of being grounded, What's it like having a Guggenheim fellowship?

- (Jericho) Oh, it's nice.

They give you all this money.

It's like $50,000.

It's a lot of money.

- (Sueann) Did you go to Italy with that?

- (Jericho) Yeah.

Did I go to Italy with that?

I definitely went to Italy.

Was that at the same time?

I went to the Biennale in Italy.

Actually had this fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri house, which is his castle.

I stayed there for, I think, six weeks and you write.

They just give you time.

They feed you and they give you time to write and get work done.

And yeah, I'm always happy to win prizes.

I like it when people give me money for my poems and money for me work on poems, I get excited about that.

We can't really get hung up on it, Right.

We can't get hung up on prizes and fellowships and awards.

But when I get them, man, I love it.

I love every moment, you know, and when I don't get them, I'm sad.

I cry.

I call my friends.

I complain.

But then I have to hurry up and get over it because I don't want that to be who I am, because here's the truth about awards, if you're a writer at least, if you never win one and you're a writer, you still have to write, you still have to wake up the next morning and face the blank page and deal with the terror and the tyranny of that blank page that you've got to put life on it.

And if you win every one of, if today somebody announced that Jericho Brown is the winner of every literary award ever, I'll be a lot wealthier and very happy.

But at the end of the day, the next day, I will still have to face the blank page and make a planet happen on it and make a world on that blank page.

Do you know what I mean?

And so that pressure is a pressure that happens outside of our ideas about capitalism and our ideas about awards and prizes.

So I'm glad to get them, but I also know that my writing life does not and cannot depend on them.

- (Sueann) Oh, love it.

You said a magical word to me.

I want to know your thoughts about capitalism.

- (Jericho) About capitalism?

- (Sueann) Is it working for us?

- (Jericho) No.

I mean, everybody knows that's not working.

- (Sueann) Can we keep buying our way out of it?

- (Jericho) No, like this is the other thing.

I mean, we're in the middle of an election where one of the reasons why people don't want to vote for the person who most aligns with their ideas is because that person is also saying he won't take campaign contributions that are over a certain amount of money.

So that person is going to be campaigning against a person who doesn't have that same kind of moral belief or ethical belief or political belief.

And who thinks I will campaign with billions and billions and billions of dollars, which puts us in a position where we don't want to vote for the person whose ideals line up with our own ideals, which shows you right there, that capitalism is not working.

That's one example.

I mean, there are actually lists and lists of examples to show that it doesn't work, but it's also what we have to deal with.

I mean, I do wish that we could have much more education about the fact that having a lot of money says nothing about one's character or moral being.

- (Sueann) Yes.

- (Jericho) Oh, thank you.

I mean, I do, particularly for young men, I think it's very difficult for everyone, but particularly for men, I think men are really, they really get caught up in a lot of prideful stuff around what we own.

- (Sueann) Your not gonna get the girl, if you don't have the car.

- (Jericho) Well, not just that.

You're not going to get the girl if you don't have the car, which means you won't have two possessions, do you see what I'm saying?

Like that among the things that we think of as possessions, then the relationship with a woman in particular, suddenly becomes one of the possessions.

Do you know what I mean?

And then that woman's beauty also becomes sort of like something to buy or market or think of as a possession.

And so like, those are the kinds of things that I think capitalism has not allowed us to be honest about.

Capitalism, for instance, does not allow us to be honest about our bodies.

The fact that we get older, you know what I mean?

- (Sueann) Thank you.

- (Jericho) The fact that our bodies change - (Sueann) And that's okay!

- (Jericho) And they should.

Getting older is better than the other option.

(laughs) Do you know what I mean?

- (Sueann) You get old gracefully and then you will die one day.

- (Jericho) Exactly, Exactly - (Sueann) Hopefully nicely.

But yeah.

- (Jericho) So those are the kinds of things that I think show that it doesn't work, but we're also in a situation where it is, because of what it is, it is.

Do you know what I mean?

It's a conquering mode of being and because it's a conquering mode of being, it becomes very difficult to fight against it, because the other modes of being aren't conquering, do you know what I mean?

- (Sueann) And professor, Americans are impatient.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

It's true.

- (Sueann) And we're used to things going quickly, bigger, faster and 24 hours a day.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

- (Sueann) So when we don't like something, we get very, very mad, not changing quick enough.

Wow.

You just gave me so much to chew on right there.

Possession.

I mean, as a woman, I can't believe I never really thought of that before.

There's so many things to learn and understand about our world and we keep learning more and more about human behavior and the way the brain works and your animal brain and then the higher brain.

And I mean, it can be exhausting sometimes, but it's so interesting.

- (Jericho) It is interesting.

- (Sueann) So there are many controversial poems that highlight the dark side of America towards African-Americans.

Receiving the awards that you have, that speaks a lot of volumes.

But have you received any negative feedback because of your poetry?

- (Jericho) Yeah, of course.

I mean, well, on various levels.

We were just talking about prizes and awards.

I mean, every time I don't win an award, I got rejected.

I haven't won them all.

So that means there's all these awards that I've been.

I get rejected from the Nobel every year.

- (Sueann) I'm looking forward to you winning one.

- (Jericho) Me too.

I look forward to it too.

But so far they haven't had a good idea about it.

They haven't given me one yet.

Do you understand what I mean?

- (Sueann) They've got some issues though.

- (Jericho) Right, right, clearly, clearly.

But you know, so on one level, there's that, but on the other level, yeah, I've written poems that were what people think of as political.

I've written poems that make use of the Bible or make use of religion in certain ways that have upset people and I'll get emails.

- (Sueann) You will.

- (Jericho) Oh yeah, People get in your DM's.

I'll get messages on Twitter or Facebook, - (Sueann) Oh Twitter, good grief.

- (Jericho) or Instagram, or through my email, even at Emory, where people get upset about something that I've said, - (Sueann) Is that something that's, you know, in an art form, okay to do?

It's like, the painter who's like, yes, I want you to be angry about this, or not.

I mean, when does it become personal.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, I ignore, I had like a stalker.

I wrote this poem called bullet points and this guy, he wouldn't leave me alone.

And I realized, I talked to one of my poet friends, the writer, great writer, Carolyn Forche, she's like, you cannot antagonize these people.

Like, you know, I can antagonize them with my poems.

I don't write my poems, trying to antagonize anybody.

I write the poems because they are the best example of my soul on earth.

And so there they go.

You can do whatever you want with them.

But then after somebody is upset with me about my poems, I don't respond.

You know, I've learned from Carolyn and other people, when people are trying to get you to deal with their foolishness and their insanity, it's not a good idea because the only way that you can deal with somebody else's insanity is if you become insane, you know, I'm not interested in being a crazy person.

And so I let it go.

- (Sueann) Oh, good.

- (Jericho) And generally, when people are upset about my poems, it seems to me, because they know something in them probably tells them that they're wrong about an idea that they've been living by.

They can either get mad at me about my poem, or they can figure out how to adjust their lives.

And nobody really wants to figure out how to adjust.

You know, we realized part of what poems, part of what literature in general, part of what art teaches us is how to look at ourselves for what our lives really are.

And often you will come across poems that tell you what you've really been thinking.

And then you don't like it because you haven't been living that way that you think.

And so then instead of, for a lot of people, instead of lining things up so that you live how you think and think how you live, they would rather get mad at the person who brought the news.

- (Sueann) Because you made them feel something that they're not comfortable with.

There's so much people being uncomfortable and not realizing that that's how you grow.

- (Jericho) That's the way life is.

Yeah.

- (Sueann) You're going to be uncomfortable and that's okay.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

Uncomfortable is not so bad.

- (Sueann) Yeah.

Pain.

Which some of your poems, I feel like, come from some deep pain.

You've taken that and turned it into art.

So looking toward the future, and I don't wish pain on you at all, but are there any life experiences you're interested to experience so you could write poems about them?

- (Jericho) No, I don't think about it that way, but I was just here at this school.

I was telling a class that it's a good idea to never say no.

And to experience as much of life.

Nikki Giovanni told me this.

Well, she told a group of students this.

When I was very young, somebody asked her, what advice do you give to a young poet?

And she said, never say no.

And I always say, never say no, but use condoms.

(laughs) So I think it's a really good idea to get your heartbroken and to fall in love and climb mountains and see things you haven't seen.

Cause then you have things to write about and to invest yourself, invest yourself in the passions that actually puts you at risk because you don't have anything at stake in your life.

You're not going to have anything at stake in poems.

If you don't have anything at stake in your poems, you're not going to have poems that feel risky, That feel energetic.

So that's how I'm trying to live.

- (Sueann) You're a very authentic person.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

But I don't look for experiences to write about.

No, I don't do that.

- (Sueann) How can those who don't write poetry, the lay person, how can we get more poetry into the world?

- (Jericho) Yeah.

Well, I mean, I have probably 6 billion answers to that because I think about this a lot.

And then I also think about whether or not as a poet, I should even be thinking about this.

Cause maybe that's not my job.

If my job is to write poems, is it my job to make sure poems are everywhere?

I don't know.

And then I don't know how much poem should be everywhere.

I do know that people love poems, whether they know it or not.

I know that.

Yeah.

I'll tell you how I know.

I know that when I sit on an airplane, I sit next to people and they asked me what I do.

And I tell them I'm a poet.

And one of two things happen.

The one thing that happens is that they just stop talking to me, because they think I'm lying or they can't deal with that answer; or they say the strangest thing.

So they say, what do you do?

I say, I'm a poet.

They say, I hate poetry, which is always hilarious to me.

It's like, I just told you.

So they'll say I hate poetry.

And what I've learned over the years to say back to that is, oh, you've never liked any poem.

You don't have any line of any poem that you feel close to?

To which they always, every time I've ever asked, people then recite an entire poem from various sources.

You know, often Cummings or Frost.

I've heard a lot of, I'll get some lines from Elliot.

I'll get some Stevens, I'll get some Gwendolyn Brooks.

Had somebody recite "We Real Cool" to me pretty recently.

- (Sueann) Any Winnie the Pooh?

- (Jericho) No Winnie the Pooh so far, I'm sure it'll happen now, but it's really interesting to me to have that experience because these people in the middle of telling me how much they hate poetry are giving me the poem that has sustained them for often the last 40 years of their lives.

And that seems to me, the real proof of what poetry can do.

You know, a lot of us don't think, I think a lot about trees.

I spend a lot of time thinking about trees.

Many of us don't, I'm only recently thinking about trees in the last, I would say eight years of my life.

- (Sueann) Why?

- (Jericho) Cause I bought a house and I have trees and there mine.

- (Sueann) What kind?

- (Jericho) I have Crepe Myrtles, and I have some Cedar tree.

I have a whole bunch of stuff.

Anyway.

- (Sueann) Sorry!

- (Jericho) So my point is that in spite of the fact that many people don't think about trees, if we think about even where we are, we're on a college campus right now, we're surrounded by trees.

And if we were to try to imagine being in the same space without any of the trees that we pass by on the way here.

So when we walked here, we weren't thinking about those trees.

And yet as soon as we think, oh my God, those trees aren't there on the walk from wherever our car was to this building, that scares us.

That bothers us.

And I think that's what poems do.

- (Sueann) I think you're right.

- (Jericho) I think we don't realize how much we need and love and enjoy poetry in our life.

And I'm happy.

- (Sueann) I'm sad to say we kind of take it for granted.

- (Jericho) Exactly, exactly.

Yeah - (Sueann) Like air.

Poetry, trees, and air.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

So some of the things that we can do is to change our relationship to the way we teach poetry and put poetry around us in the same way that we have music around us, - (Sueann) please.

Yes.

- (Jericho) You know, when we listen to music, we don't expect, people read poems thinking that they're supposed to be an answer and they read poems as if they're reading riddles.

But when we listen to songs, we listen to songs and enjoy them.

The way you enjoy art, which is that you allow feeling to get somewhere into your mind.

So your feeling and your thought gets intermingled.

Do you know what I'm saying?

- (Sueann) Yes, I do.

- (Jericho) Which is why you can listen to a song and then cry.

And I think the same thing should be how we approach poems.

I also think, you know, when poems are taught, they're taught as riddles.

And so it's a good idea if poems could be taught the same way everything else is taught.

That what I say in a poem is what I mean.

And you just read it for what it is, as opposed to reading it, trying to explicate it every step of the way.

- (Sueann) Is that just human nature to try to find the meaning and everything instead of letting it be.

- (Jericho) Well.

Yes and no.

I mean, I do think it's human nature to find the meaning in everything.

But I also think there is something that happens when I teach the intro class at the university where I teach.

If I teach a poem, if the first line of that poem is, "a man walked outside and looked at the flowers", if I were to read that line and I say to my students, what just happened in that line of poetry, my students will then say to me one of two things, in two different families.

They will say to me, "you know, Dr. Brown, this makes me think about my grandmother."

It's like, why?

why can't this man walk outside and look at these flowers.

Nobody asked you nothing about your grandmother, right?

Or, you know, this makes me think about the 19th century architecture and the theory of-- like, why did that just happen to me?

A man walked outside.

He looked at some flowers and that's what I think happens in the poem.

So yes, I do think human beings see a mess and want to make clarity of the mess.

But when there's not a mess, we could just see what's there.

- (Sueann) We put so much into it.

We are so complicated, wonderful creatures.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

That's one word for us.

- (Sueann) Messy.

We're messy, humans.

So then are you okay when people read one of your poems and it means something completely different than your intent?

- (Jericho) I really haven't had this experience, maybe because when people, it's not like people report back to me their interpretation of my poems.

I do hope that when my readers read my poems, though, they will see things that I don't myself see in them.

I do hope that the things they see come from the poems and not from things that aren't there, that's the most I can say about that.

- (Sueann) Wow.

Yeah.

Jericho that's all of the formal questions I have.

- (Jericho) Alright, formal questions.

- (Sueann) I know, formal questions are over.

So do you live close to your mom and dad?

- (Jericho) I live in Atlanta, Georgia, which I think is a 10 or 11 hour drive from where my parents live.

And my sister lives in Washington, DC.

Because I live in Atlanta and it's the best airport in the world, getting there, to my sister, to my parents, through a plane or through driving, All of that is a lot easier now than it was when I was in San Diego, when it was impossible to get home at the last minute, given family emergency.

So I'm happy to be back in the south.

I mean, I'm happy to be back in the south also because it's good for me to be around the vernacular that I use to write, so.

- (Sueann) When you were on the west coast, What culture difference did you notice?

- (Jericho) Um, everything.

- (Sueann) Yes, please tell me.

- (Jericho) Well, just, I mean, as a word person, as a person interested in language, I just, I mean, at first and foremost noticed that a lot of the words that I use were made up and that people didn't understand a word of it.

And I learned that I had an accent, which I didn't know I really had, you know, there are words we say, like finna and nium, you know.

- (Sueann) Nium.

You educated me with nium.

I love that.

- (Jericho) I know, right?

So those, you know, are words that we use in the south, I didn't know they were regional words cause I always lived in that region.

So that's one of the things that's different.

- (Sueann) And how do they treat you in San Diego?

- (Jericho) People were nice.

I liked San Diego a lot.

I really liked where I was teaching.

I was teaching at a school called the University of San Diego where I really feel like I learned to be a good and thoughtful teacher.

And there was a lot of reverence for teaching there that the students and the faculty have.

And I love that about that place.

San Diego was okay.

It's kind of place though, I'm happy to be back in the south.

San Diego was a little bit too perfect for my, you know, like it's always 71 degrees and it's always sunny and it's always, you know, I just needed a little more personality than that.

- (Sueann) Interesting.

When you give 'em a reading, do you feel their energy too, After you've read a poem?

Like what's that atmosphere like for you because you are opening yourself up.

- (Jericho) Well, It's always best when there's a certain kind of a back and forth and interaction with the audience, which is obviously silent, but felt.

It's different at different places, but you can sort of feel when an audience is on your side and when they're looking forward to you and when they're really listening and you can also feel when you're speaking to someone as if in conversation, as opposed to speaking at someone, just reading out, you know?

So I like doing it.

- (Sueann) And tell me the difference between reading for a black audience.

- (Jericho) Oh, that's interesting.

Well, when I read and it's black people or mostly black people, there are sounds.

- (Sueann) I want to know more.

Tell me.

- (Jericho) I mean, you can actually imagine, it's just very black.

Like, you know, if I'd make a metaphor and it's really good people make noise.

Like, Ooh.

- (Sueann) They acknowledged.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

I know that's right.

Oh, do you know what I mean?

- (Sueann) Yes, I love it so much.

- (Jericho) When I read for other audiences, - (Sueann) They're quiet and polite.

- (Jericho) Well, the more quiet you are often means that I'm doing better.

You know, that means I have your attention.

Whereas some audiences, I know I'm doing better, - (Sueann) because they're reacting.

- (Jericho) Because they are physically reacting.

I grew up in the black church.

And when you were a kid, you learn to speak in front of people pretty early.

We weren't allowed to be shy.

You didn't have shy kids.

Cause people were going at Easter, at mother's day, at Christmas, - (Sueann) Microphone in your-- - (Jericho) And you had to say at least, I mean, from the point that you could speak, you know, from two or three years old, you had to say, Jesus wept.

You had to give a speech or you had to recite a poem or you had to do something.

And that happened every month.

You know what I mean?

- (Sueann) Yeah, Lots of practice.

- (Jericho) Yeah, and no matter what you said, when you said it from one side of the room to the other, from all over the sanctuary, because you were a kid saying it, people would be screaming in the middle of you talking.

So I learned pretty early the power of words.

That's why when people say spoken word, they mean spoken word, the word.

- (Sueann) the word.

- (Jericho) Yeah.

And that word, in the word, gets different reactions from different people.

- (Sueann) There's so much feeling and expression in the African-American community.

And I come from a half white, half Asian background, and the Koreans are loud.

And when they sound like they're yelling at you, it's because they like you.

And then my dad's side is just, you know, let's not, let's just maintain.

Maintain.

And when Koreans talk, there's always like, mm mm mm.

And if I don't hear it then I don't think they're listening.

So I had to learn really quickly.

It's like different people, different rules.

But Dr. Brown, thank you so much for taking the time.

And I'm so excited that I have discovered your poetry.

- (Jericho) Thank you.

- (Sueann) Oh, thank you for writing.

And I hope you have a good break.

A couple of days ago, I met a woman who is a Latinex, feminist, mental health advocate.

And she was talking about self-care and you mentioned some health issues, but also like meditation.

What are you doing for self-care?

I mean, I'm glad you're going to rest at the hotel tonight, but.

Cause this takes a lot of energy.

- (Jericho) This is a great question because maybe I'm not doing enough, but like I said, I am trying to carve out time daily.

- (Sueann) Good.

- (Jericho) Where I have meditation and I am, the other thing I'm doing is watching more TV or movies that I don't have to, like, I think it's actually a good idea for me to watch some trash, sometimes.

- (Sueann) Yes, What's your favorite trash?

- (Jericho)I like superhero stuff.

I like all things Marvel.

I like a lot of fantasy and magic, you know, Game of Thrones type stuff.

- (Sueann) Oh my God, Game of Thrones.

- (Jericho) And I like, but I also like, you know, I watch Scandal.

I watch How to Get Away with Murder, so.

- (Sueann) How to Get Away with Murder kind of messed me up a little bit in the beginning.

I had to take a break.

- (Jericho) Oh, yah, it's a lot.

It's a lot.

Well good.

It's nice to know that geniuses watch trash TV too.

Isn't it?

It makes me feel a little bit better about myself.

I was sorta hoping you were going to say something like the Bachelor, but I'm glad we went with like the fantasy - (Jericho) Even I have my limits.

- (Sueann) Thank you, Dr. Brown.

- (Jericho) Thank y'all so much.

- (Sueann) Poet, Jericho brown.

Hopefully you can find his book at your library.

If not, I encourage you to find it through your independent bookseller.

You'll be moved.

Thanks for listening to Traverse Talks.

I'm Sueann Ramella.