{"id":3732,"date":"2011-04-01T00:01:53","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T05:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=3732"},"modified":"2015-03-25T21:06:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T03:06:47","slug":"an-interview-with-jericho-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/3732","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Jericho Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Radcliffe Institute, among others. Brown is an Assistant Professor at the University of San Diego. His first book, Please<\/span> (New Issues), won the American Book Award.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Interviewer: For you, what is the pleasure of writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: That question probably has too many answers. One is that when you write, you create your own world. I\u2019ve always been taken by making my own set of mythologies, that this set of mythologies could be something that other people could be engrossed in, in the way that I was engrossed in the Greek myths when I was a kid\u2014that I become the manipulator. There\u2019s a certain kind of joy in having that amount of power, which is a really weird thing, because writing has so much to do with vulnerability and powerlessness.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: How do you negotiate that paradox, the experience of feeling powerful while writing a poem, yet feeling the need to be vulnerable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: I think to really do the thing well, you have to have access to all that is who you are, including the imagination. You have to have access to parts of your imagination that, in your life outside of being a writer, would be locked away. And for good reason\u2014you would be committed if every inch of yourself was manifested in your daily walk. People would assume that you\u2019re crazy. Being able to hone every inch of yourself, every part of who you are, and put it into words, means that you are actually making use of it. So that\u2019s where the power comes in. But there is also a certain kind of powerlessness, because you are dealing with things that you often would rather not deal with on the conscious level.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: What role does compartmentalizing play in your identity as a poet? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: Compartmentalizing is a necessary thing if you\u2019re going to be an artist. Something about it sounds pejorative, but I think that it\u2019s absolutely necessary if you\u2019re going to be influenced. The truth about every one of us is that we have some amount of evil. Some people just manifest it in their lives a lot more fully than others. I love talking about Eliot, partially because I know every time I say his name he turns over in his grave. He didn\u2019t mean for me to be influenced by his work. Stevens is another guy that I think of. He went as far as calling Gwendolyn Brooks a \u201cdarky\u201d at some point in his career. Yet, as manipulators of words, they\u2019ve done amazing work with the English language, in their essays and in their poems. In order for me to fully enjoy that, I have to understand that these are people and that people do evil things. Okay, now that I know that, let\u2019s go read this poem and see if I like it.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a>Interviewer: Is persona a way of managing our different selves? How do you define persona and decide when to use it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: The answer to that is different given different persona poems. For instance, there is a series of poems in the first book based on The Wizard of Oz<\/em>. After I wrote the first poem, \u201cScarecrow,\u201d1<\/sup><\/a> I thought I was done. Then one of my teachers told me, \u201cYou wrote this Scarecrow poem\u2014now you have to write a Tin Man poem and a Lion poem.\u201d They came from a place where I said, what would the Tin Man say? Where as \u201cSummertime,\u201d2<\/sup><\/a> a poem about Janis Joplin, or \u201cReflections,\u201d3<\/sup><\/a> in the voice of Diana Ross, were more like masks\u2014poems that allow me to say something that I otherwise wouldn\u2019t be able to say with the lyric “I.”<\/p>\n

I should add here that the feeling you have in the midst of writing a poem is the most whole you\u2019ll ever have, and yet it\u2019s the most permeable. It\u2019s a real charge, one that I have been afraid of in the past. Once I realized that I\u2019m experiencing this charge over and over again, I was like, this can\u2019t be a good thing. This is kind of like heroin or something.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Is it the fear of not being able to access that place again? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: That\u2019s part of it. But once I realized how much I enjoy writing poems and began observing myself as I was writing\u2014how things could go by, that the phone could ring and I could be mad if somebody knocked on the door\u2013when I realized that that\u2019s who I was as a person, I was really afraid of this other identity. I think of “poet” as an identity, because it\u2019s not like you choose it. If you\u2019re any kind of a writer, you do it because you can\u2019t help but do it.<\/p>\n

\"042110_Brown_Jericho_079.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Is there a Jericho Brown persona in your work? When you are writing, is there a voice that feels like, this is my voice, naked and unmasked?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: It\u2019s all the more intense if I\u2019m speaking through someone else\u2019s voice, as opposed to the lyric “I.” In a persona poem there\u2019s all the drama of trying to be Janis Joplin\u2014this is a lot to hold in a body in the midst of the writing process. I feel much more Jericho Brown when I\u2019m writing those poems than I do when I\u2019m writing \u201cI walked across the street yesterday\u201d kinds of poems. One of my favorite poets when I began writing was AI. I was interested in how, no matter who the speaker of the poem was, she was going to use the same stripped down, primal human voice. I don\u2019t think I do what she does, but I do try to create a line of consciousness throughout the poems, so that whether or not you know that this is a true story, you know that you have come to some truth because of the story. The major way that this happens in poetry is through rhythm and music. We know this when we hear a beautiful love song. We feel whatever the singer is singing about that they really mean or really experienced, but it\u2019s really just a good song. They didn\u2019t have to mean it or experience it. They just had to be able to sing it.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Interviewer: I heard that Solomon Burke4<\/sup><\/a> never knew the songs or lyrics ahead of time, that he would just come into the studio and perform. At first this really upset me, until I realized that it doesn\u2019t matter. He\u2019s a vessel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: Being a vessel\u2014that\u2019s the interesting thing about singers. I think there is a moment in the performance though, and this is clearly the case of Solomon Burke, when the singer realizes what the song is about, if the song is going to be of any success. That could be on take three, but it does happen. This is what\u2019s always been interesting to me, why some of the African American singers who have never been considered soul singers have still been popular, because they\u2019re really good actresses. People like Diana Ross or Vanessa Williams. They\u2019re really good at being like, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on in this song, cause I ain\u2019t no Aretha Franklin. I got to at least know what\u2019s happening.\u201d Where as Aretha Franklin doesn\u2019t need to know what\u2019s going on in a song, because she has the voice to carry things.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: You\u2019ve mentioned that Kate Daniels said early on in your career: \u201cIf you already know the answer to the question in a poem, don\u2019t write it.\u201d What are the questions you asked in Please<\/em> that you feel no longer need answering? And what questions are you asking in your new manuscript?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: In Please, <\/em>one thing I asked is how the generation before mine handles the fact of me being both black and gay. What might be different in this book is the question of how people of my own generation feel about me being both black and gay. And when I say “me,” I don\u2019t mean me, obviously. I\u2019m really interested in this other thing you said earlier\u2014what\u2019s the real Jericho Brown? When I was sixteen years old, I was assigned a research paper, and my topic was, by happenstance, the confessional poets. Part of what I found out doing my research was that the person they created in their poems wasn\u2019t always who they really were. Louise Gl\u00fcck<\/em> isn\u2019t as austere as any of her poems seem to be. It\u2019s like a hyper version of who they are. That\u2019s what\u2019s so interesting about that Lyn Hejinian<\/em> book, My Life<\/em>. I feel like part of the project of that book\u2014and this might be part of the criticism or the best part of that book\u2014is that it doesn\u2019t try to create a dramatic self. The book simply makes use of the real, everyday, plain and flattened experience. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>Interviewer: In your new manuscript, what is the journey you would like your readers to experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: There is a book I love called Among the Monarchs<\/em> <\/em>by Christine Garren.5<\/sup><\/a> I thought I just wanted to write that book all over again\u2014I didn\u2019t care that she already wrote it. It\u2019s a book that\u2019s cumulative. It has a lot of amazing poems, but there\u2019s a way in which the poems don\u2019t seem to have the same strength that the book has. There\u2019s a one-note-ishness, but I don\u2019t say that pejoratively at all. There\u2019s a certain amount of silence and quiet that she manipulates.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: In Please <\/em>it seems that silence is as present as music. What was the role of silence in putting together your first book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: I wanted each ending of every section to be a really strong poem, but also a poem that created pause, caesura. In the first and the third sections there was a kind of cacophony. I really needed to bring that all the way down before moving into the next section of the book, so that you understand that there is a change, an intermission.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: I\u2019ve noticed a different approach to line breaks in your newer poems.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: Line breaks are the reason I fell in love with poems. When I was a kid and I was first reading poetry, the poem seemed different from prose because it had line breaks\u2014that\u2019s how I knew. The line break was amazing, because so many meanings could be made in that moment. A line break, I really believe, is a moment of doubt\u2014that in the process of writing, you don\u2019t break your line until you know that you have heightened doubt to its utmost. This is part of why what we\u2019re doing is an amazing craft.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: There is an element of surprise and discovery that I love in Please<\/em>. How is surprise a part of your writing process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: On the craft level, transformation is really important to me. For this reason I\u2019ve always been interested in the poems of Robert Bly, Yusef Komunyakaa. I like Jean Valentine, the openings and ruptures, sudden movements that are associative. I\u2019ve heard that Jorie Graham would tell her students that whenever you finish writing a poem, write one hundred more lines. That\u2019s really interesting to me. If the ending is indeed a surprise, then it has to be a surprise to me. And yet it has to feel like it\u2019s part of the poem. That\u2019s the hard part. Being surprising is not hard at all. The hard part is, how do you stay in the tone, stay in the voice, in the diction. That\u2019s the work of the poem, the work we have to do.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Going back to the importance of vulnerability, it seems that for poets who are already vulnerable because of their identities, there is an added layer of risk in representing that experience, in placing our bodies and sexuality under the gaze of the reader\u2014such as writing a poem about a strap-on, or anything else that might be perceived as subversive. How do you protect yourself while being vulnerable?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: This is a really hard question, only because the answer I have must not be the real answer. I got it in my mind a long time ago that the poem lasts a lot longer than I do and so who gives a fuck about me. That the poem very well could do things that I couldn\u2019t do. That the feeling I feel when I read poems is way better than any experience that I had had with a human being. Somewhere along the way I was really under the impression that love wasn\u2019t real, that it was kind of a thing we had made up. I felt that same way for a long time and probably didn\u2019t change until I met Derrick, which is pretty recent. I felt for a long time that love was another one of those kinds of myths. I wasn\u2019t under this impression that my parents loved me. And because of that, I wasn\u2019t under the impression that I owed them love, and because of that, I wasn\u2019t under the impression that I owed anybody I was in relationships with love. That was never a reality to me, and if that\u2019s not a reality, you don\u2019t feel like you have anything to lose.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: <\/strong>That\u2019s what we\u2019re trained to want: our desire for love as children keeps us in good behavior.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: And the truth is that if you don\u2019t believe you have your parents’ love, then you probably don\u2019t believe you have anybody\u2019s, and you probably don\u2019t think of love as being a possible thing. If you don\u2019t think love is a possible thing, then so what if you write a poem about a strap-on or condom or whatever.<\/p>\n

In spite of that, something that I really did believe in was legacy.\u00a0 I always believed Langston Hughes was with us and that he loved black folk. That\u2019s how the poem became supreme for me. This is a problem for me now because for the first time in my life I have love and it puts me in a complete writing quandary. I have nowhere to go to and nowhere to come from because I feel like there\u2019s something on earth I could lose.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: That seems to contradict the question I often hear in workshop\u2014what\u2019s at stake in a poem?\u2014which seems to be another way of saying that one has something to lose. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: While I was in a workshop in New Orleans run by Kalamu ya Salaam, I remember him saying to me, \u201cThe real problem with the poem is that it\u2019s unashamed. And what it needs to be is shameless.\u201d I really had to think about the difference between being unashamed and shameless. I think maybe you just said it. The question \u201cWhat\u2019s at stake in this poem?\u201d is different from \u201cNothing is at stake.\u201d And if nothing is truly at stake, then why not make the decision to say or do the so-called risky thing. Let me fix this though. So many poems I read now are about absolutely nothing and that really bothers me. There is an imitative force amongst poets of my generation and younger that really needs to be checked. It\u2019s to the point where people think, \u201cNothing matters and I\u2019m going to write this poem and it\u2019s going to be about nothing.\u201d That\u2019s not fair. I\u2019m a believer in legacy and I love poetry and I think that poems must be necessary. They must mean something. That\u2019s not to say that they need to have a-b-c meaning, but they have to have urgency.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: What do you hope to leave as a legacy for future generations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: The poets I love are people who, other than writing really good poems, made cultural change. If I had any goal for myself, I guess that would be it. When I think of people like Adrienne Rich, Langston Hughes, T.S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, even Frost\u2014because they existed, whether or not we know it, we go about things differently on this planet. But what my legacy will be, it\u2019s probably not fair of me to say. I have a million ideas of what I\u2019d like it to be, but I don\u2019t know, and when I say not fair, I mean it probably wouldn\u2019t be fair to myself as an artist. I want to be surprised, and I want to be made new every time I write a book, and discover new things every time I write a poem.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Is there any subject for you that is still taboo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown: I hope so. Part of feeling like you have a great task in front of you has to do with that, what people call taboo. If I weren\u2019t writing about these things, then I wouldn\u2019t feel like I had great work to do. Part of the anxiety of writing has to do with the feeling, \u201cOh my god I have to write this poem.\u201d Every time I write a poem, every time I write a book, I want to get closer to the bone, and after I get to the bone I want to get closer to the marrow. I want to get closer and closer and always be in a position of vulnerability and always be in a position of fear. You\u2019re not writing if you\u2019re not scared. I taught a workshop last week and a bit of argument came up about what to write and how to write and they were really concerned. I told them, the important thing is to write what you can\u2019t refuse. If you can refuse to write it, don\u2019t. But if you can\u2019t, if something is egging you on\u2026 There\u2019s a certain amount of responsibility that comes with what we do. Which is why there is very little thanks in the world for it, right? I believe poetry is important, and that it makes a difference.<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>1<\/sup> “Scarecrow”<\/a> \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>2<\/sup> “Summertime”<\/a> \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>3<\/sup> “Reflections”<\/a> \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>4<\/sup> Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me”<\/a> \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>5<\/sup> Christine Garren’s Among the Monarchs<\/em><\/a> \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read Jericho Brown’s <\/em>Langston Blue<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Radcliffe Institute, among others. Brown is an Assistant Professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[23],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-Yc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11816,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions\/11816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}