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Falling in love with Jericho Brown: Discussing vulnerability and poetry in advance of his appearance in Missoula for Black History Month

Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Tradition’ (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), will be a guest of the President’s Lecture Series at the University of Montana on February 6, 2025.

This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with poet Jericho Brown, author of, most recently, The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press), published in 2019 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize; and, as editor, The Selected Shepherd (University of Pittsburgh Press; Pitt Poetry Series), the poems of Reginald Shephard, published in 2024.

NOTE! In celebration of Black History Month and in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., Jericho will be in Missoula on Thursday, February 6, 2025, at the Phyllis J. Washington College of Education ALI Auditorium, as a guest of the University of Montana’s President’s Lecture Series. Fact & Fiction Books will be selling books at the event, which is free and open to the public (though seats will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis). ASL interpretation will be provided, and the event will be live streamed, as well. More information about this event can be found here.

About Jericho:

Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

Jericho Brown recommends:

The poetry(-ies) of Michael Shoemaker, Courtney Faye Taylor, Yona Harvey, Ilya Kaminsky, Douglas Kearney, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, francine j. harris, Tarfia Faizullah, Marilyn Chin, Patrick Phillips, Robin Schiff, and Lucille Clifton

The Selected Shepherd by Reginald Shepherd and edited by Jericho Brown (University of Pittsburgh Press; Pitt Poetry Series)

Selected Poems by Robert Duncan and edited by Robert J. Bertholf (New Directions)

A Bernadette Mayer Reader by Bernadette Mayer (New Directions)

Blackacre and From From by Monica Youn (Copper Canyon Press)

boy maybe by W. J. Lofton (Beacon Press)

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press)

Among the Monarchs by Christine Green (University of Chicago Press)

Creature by Michael Dumanis (Four Way Books)

Paper Crown by Heather Christle (forthcoming, Wesleyan Poetry Series)

The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis (Vintage Books)

Lauren Korn recommends:

The Tradition and The New Testament by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)

The Selected Shepherd by Reginald Shepherd and edited by Jericho Brown (University of Pittsburgh Press; Pitt Poetry Series)

Scattered Snows, to the North, Then the War and Selected Poems, 2007-2020 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination (Graywolf Press), and My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing (Yale University Press) by Carl Phillips

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press)

The Wild Iris (Ecco Press), Averno (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Meadowlands (HarperCollins) by Louise Glück

Slow Lightning by Eduardo C. Corral (Yale University Press)

Dangerous Goods by Sean Hill (Milkweed Editions)

The Trees The Trees (Octopus Books), The Difficult Farm (Octopus Books), Heliopause (Wesleyan University Press), The Crying Book (Catapult), and In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf (forthcoming, Algonquin Books)
by Heather Christle

The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Bookworks of Whitefish, offering new books of all genres, stationery, and puzzles. Open 11AM to 6PM Monday through Saturday. Located in downtown Whitefish, Montana, in the Third & Spokane Building.

The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.

Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.

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Lauren R. Korn holds an M.A. in poetry from the University of New Brunswick, where she was the recipient of the Tom Riesterer Memorial Prize and the Angela Ludan Levine Memorial Book Prize. A former bookseller and the former Director of the Montana Book Festival, she is now an Arts and Culture Producer at Montana Public Radio and the host of it’s literature-based radio program and podcast, ‘The Write Question.’
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