1 Corinthians 13:11When I was a child, I spoke as a child.I even had a child's disease. I ranFrom the Doberman like all childrenOn my street, but old men called meSpecial. The Doberman caught up,Chewed my right knee. Limp nowIn two places, I carried a child's BibleLike a football under the arm that didn'tAche. I was never alone. I ownedMy brother's shame of me. I lovedThe words thou and thee. Both meantMy tongue in front of my teeth.Both meant a someone speaking to me.So what if I itched. So wha...

Beautiful poetry. Brown does lovely things with cadence. You can feel these poems in the face of your chest.

My review appears in issue 5 of Glint Literary Journal:http://glintjournal.wordpress.com/cur...

As good a way as any to reteach myself to read like I did before this electoral cycle (which ended, became Transition then climate) is to read two books of poetry a week. Amen.N’emThey said to say goodnightAnd not goodbye, unpluggedThe TV when it rained. They hidMoney in mattressesSo to sleep on decisions.Some of their childrenWere not their children. SomeOf their parents had no birthdates.They could sweat a cold outOf you. They'd wake withoutAn alarm telling them to.Even the short ones reachedC...

I want Jericho Brown to make music

I hope to read some more poetry books written by this author. His work came to my attention, browsing at a Best-Of-2019 list. This collection The New Testament from 2014 is a taste of what may be available to read in his other writings. One theme here considers his identity as a son, brother, lover, and other designated labels in human interactions. How is he different from those people whom he describes through their actions and beliefs and their expectations about him.

I am astounded. Usually, the poetry I've read is highly pensive, languorous, moody or scenic. This author's bluntness of blood and death is striking, and uniquely so. The volume will send you back to "the good book" to get an idea of the poem's foundation, but don't be fooled: there's nothing sacred or religious about his interpretation. The poet's hand is guided, not by the Holy Spirit, but by the demons who wrack his soul. What he does with that connection is a bit scary, definitely physical w...

The best poems i've read "about" Christianity since Cullen. I say "about" because this is such an expansive collection that discusses the Black body, Christianity, the importance of place, the queer experience, and so much more. Cannot recommend enough. Also, the painting on the cover is STUNNING.

These are poems both harrowing and luminous as the transfigured body, a reshaping of the difficult experiences of living into holy texts. "We wrote our own BibleAnd got thrown out of church" Brown writes of the soul-making conversation with God and the weaknesses and failings of humankind, but this is not a book of moral instruction or redemption. Rather, it is the chronicle of human passion and an illuminated journey through pain and joy. So much of what is written as poetry can feel frivolous

Beautiful.

Jericho Brown writes poetry for the heart, y'all. And this may be one of the greatest openings for a book of poems:"I don't remember how I hurt myself / The pain mine / Long enough for me / To lose the wound that invented it."Brown's personal work about masculinity and how men love (or fail to love) is one to linger on, revisit, read aloud and listen to. The title is very apt considering the way he raises the personal to Biblical proportions. Then hop over to the @onbeing podcast and listen to h...

"Say the shame I see inching like steamAlong the streets will never stopBeneath the doors of this bedroom,And if it does, if we dare to breathe,Tell me that though the world ends us,Lover, it cannot end our loveOf narrative. Don't you have a storyFor me?—like the one you tellWith fingers over my lips to keep meFrom sighing when—before the queenIs kidnapped—the prince bowsTo the enemy, handing over the hornOf his favourite unicorn like those menBrought, bought, and whipped untilThey accepted thei...

The New Testament by Jericho Brown surprised me with its vivid starkness and unrelenting honesty. As I read Brown's poems, I felt visceral reactions from my head to my toes. I wanted to reach out and comfort the inhabitants of his poems at times and at others I felt tempted to give them a good shake. Brown's lyrical prose jumped off the page and created images that felt at once irreverent and holy. The New Testament certainly gives its own testimony to the life and culture that Brown knows and u...

Whoosh...

Another one read thanks to the poetry class I'm taking. The New Testament is going to fester; I can already tell. I didn't go on the underlining spree I usually do, choosing instead to circle entire poems, or draw stars on top of pages to come back to. I'm definitely looking forward to discussing this one in class.Oh, and you're welcome:"One of the seventeen times the Supremes appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, they sang 'You Can't Hurry Love' wearing earrings that weighed close to what Diana Ros...

The soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever" plays,while we are murdered, as God writhes in the beaten dust. To the magnificent, so-called Deities, offer up profane prayer and praise.Executioner as God complex,the convicted murderer put to death in false-real-time, the process repeated until surreal time is realized.God didn't hear her supplications or any other woman, He is a misogynist God,let us gather and burn silently. Chris Roberts, God Ever(y) the Days

The New Testament features one of the best opening poems I’ve encountered in a collection. It was the strength of this alone that convinced me to pick up the book, and though none of the other poems quite reached the dizzy heights of the first, I’m delighted to have discovered Brown’s work. Drawing on mythology, fairy tales, and Bible stories to comment on queerness, race, masculinity, and family, Brown’s use of language and imagery is bold and evocative. The poems I connected with on a personal...

2.5 rounded up to 3 🌟s.I’m a fan of Jericho Brown’s poetry and the bar was set pretty high with The Tradition as that was the first of his books that I read. The New Testament is not as strong for me but it does evidence some of the earlier sharpness and adroitness that are in full force in The Tradition. The first and third sections of this book felt the strongest to me, with particular favorite pieces coming from these two sections. These standouts include “Colosseum” (what a way to open up th...

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 hungerIn that world, I was a blac...

I finally read this whole collection, after having taught a few of the poems in it—“N’Em” always goes over incredibly well with students. The collection as a whole is beautiful and poignant—great stuff.