[In honor of my
about-to-conclude grad
class on Analyzing 21st Century America, a series on great
recent literary works, with the same Af Am lit through-line that I brought to
the class!]
On three ways to
connect with the wonderfully talented poet whose first book-length
collection, The Tradition, was
published this year:
1)
Read his poems: Duh, I know. But still, there
are so many ways to gain access to contemporary writers (see items 2 and 3 in
this post, natch) that it can be easy to miss out on the literary talent and
voice that make them such vital contributors to our contemporary culture. In
the case of Jericho Brown, I first learned of him through the poem “The Tradition,” which
serves as an epigraph of sorts for Jesmyn Ward’s wonderful collection The
Fire This Time. That remains one of my favorite 21st century
poems, and it seems to be a favorite of Brown’s as well, since he named his
whole collection after it. But with
each subsequent Brown
poem I’ve read, I’ve
found something new, distinct
styles and forms as well as expansions
and extensions of his central thematic threads. If you’re able to click on
some or all of those hyperlinks and check out those poems, this post will have
done everything I could hope for.
2)
His TED talk: Brown delivered a May 2015 talk at the TEDxEmory event, and it’s one
of the best TED talks I’ve seen, a multi-genre combination of poetry reading,
autobiographical one-man show, literary critical analysis of the genre of
poetry, sermon, and more besides. Since I’m asking you to watch a 16-minute
video, I’m gonna stop writing this paragraph now so you can get to doing that!
3)
Twitter: Welcome back! Like many of his fellow contemporary
writers, Brown is also a devoted and
compelling Tweeter, using the social media network not only for its
standard purposes (sharing his own work, highlighting the work of fellow
authors, reaching out and responding to readers and communities) but also (it
seems to this Twitter follower anyway) as another space in which to compose. I’m
not suggesting he’s gone as far as the novelist Teju Cole, who wrote
an entire short story on Twitter (and honestly, who else has gone that
far???). But nevertheless, to connect with Brown on Twitter is to gain access
to his perspective and voice, his creative process and ideas, his evolving
career in ways that would have seemed impossible just a decade or so ago. There’s
a lot that’s frustrating about the 21st century, but these
multi-layered connections to our greatest writers ain’t one of them!
Last 21C texts
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other recent literary works you’d highlight?
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