VS Season 6 Episode 9

Jericho Brown vs. Process of Elimination

Transcription by: Akilah Muhammad

[BACKGROUND MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Hi, my name is Ajanaé Dawkins, and I'm currently budgeting to give Beyonce whatever points are required for me to have a seat at her concert.

Brittany Rogers

And hi, I'm Brittany Rogers. And I've entered the phase of adulting where I’m officially starting to like daydream about remodeling my house, especially my bathroom.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love that for you.

Brittany Rogers

A clawfoot tub, best, that would do the work of the lord for me.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Best! I want a clawfoot tub.

Brittany Rogers

Whew! (Laughs).

Ajanaé Dawkins

Add it to the vision board.

Brittany Rogers

I’m not doin’ this with you (laughs).

Brittany Rogers

And we are your co-hosts of VS.

Ajanaé Dawkins

The podcasts were poets confront the ideas that move them.

[BACKGROUND MUSIC CONTINUES]

Ajanaé Dawkins

I'm super excited, because today we're going to be interviewing Jericho Brown. But before we get into that interview, best, how are you feeling today?

Brittany Rogers

I’m alright! I’m decent! What about you, best?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I'm thinking a lot about poems, chakras.

Brittany Rogers

(Laughing).

Ajanaé Dawkins

And, I'm wondering what is your like too easy intro into a poem when you're writing? Like, what's your like, signature? If I start with this, I could go somewhere because I know exactly how this, how this dance moves goes?

Brittany Rogers

Hmm, when I’m bullshittin’. Umm.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

I think either starting with the word now, or I think it's easiest for me to enter a poem if it's something that has to do with like motherhood.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Mmm.

Brittany Rogers

That's, I think, my easy entryway. And then, I have to figure out like, okay, girl, what are you really talking about? And does this have anything to do with just this metaphor in this experience that you're so familiar with, it is the easiest to like, it's the easiest language to access? What about you, best?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I think, for me, it's funny, because mine is, what is my too easy now is actually a corrective tool that I use because of my previous one. So you know that in my poems, I used to spend the first three stanzas avoiding what the poem was about.

Brittany Rogers

Yes (laughs.) Yes, I do.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Beating around the bush, the queen of it, and to (laughs). And to break myself out of that, I started, I actually learned this from you! I started opening my poems with a declarative statement of like, exactly what I was going for, so that I couldn't avoid the topic for the rest of the poem.

Brittany Rogers

Awe.

Ajanaé Dawkins

So a lot of my poems now start with like, a declarative statement that I might end up editing out, but the first draft, I be like, let me just put it in the first line so Brittany don’t say nothin’ (laughing).

Brittany Rogers

(Laughing). Best, I didn’t know that at all.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah, so I have to stop with the I did this (laughs), or I feel this (laughs).

Brittany Rogers

Gotta be real clear.

Ajanaé Dawkins

So yeah, that is that's my too easy now and I'm like, uh, we should work on that um (laughs).

Brittany Rogers

On that note, we are very excited to talk poetry and craft with Jericho Brown today. Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, along with the award winning collections, Please, and The New Testament. 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. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ajanaé Dawkins

Let’s get into it; I'm so excited.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Brittany Rogers

Jericho, would you do us the honor of reading us a poem to open the show.

Jericho Brown

Sure, Brittany. “Say Thank You Say I'm Sorry” (Copper Canyon, 2019).

I don’t know whose side you’re on,

But I am here for the people

Who work in grocery stores that glow in the morning

And close down for deep cleaning at night

Right up the street and in cities I mispronounce,

In towns too tiny for my big black

Car to quit, and in every wide corner

Of Kansas where going to school means

At least one field trip To a slaughterhouse. I want so little: another leather bound

Book, a gimlet with a lavender gin, bread

So good when I taste it I can tell you

How it’s made. I’d like us to rethink

What it is to be a nation. I’m in a mood about America

Today. I have PTSD

About the Lord. God save the people who work

In grocery stores. They know a bit of glamour

Is a lot of glamour. They know how much

It costs for the eldest of us to eat. Save

My loves and not my sentences. Before I see them,

I draw a mole near my left dimple,

Behind my mask. I grin or lie or maybe

I wear the mouth of a beast. I eat wild animals

While some of us grow up knowing

What gnocchi is. The people who work at the grocery don’t care.

They say, Thank you. They say, Sorry,

We don’t sell motor oil anymore with a grief so thick

You could touch it. Go on. Touch it.

It is early. It is late. They have washed their hands.

They have washed their hands for you.

And they take the bus home.

Brittany Rogers

I love hearing you read poems. It's like, literally one of my favorite things.

Jericho Brown

Oh, thank you. That's nice. That's nice to hear.

Brittany Rogers

You have such a distinguishable like cadence that I'm like, I feel like somebody could put on a video and I'm like, oh no, I know that’s Jericho.

Jericho Brown

Yeah, it's interesting, too, because it's changed over the years. I've noticed, right. Like, I think I used to read a lot slower. And now when I'm reading, I want to get to the end of the sentence.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

It seems to me that I've sped up, I've sped up a lot more. Yeah. But I'm still trying to pause particularly at um at linebreaks. I find myself still doing more pausing than I, than I um, than I would if I was reading a paragraph. So, it's changed.

Ajanaé Dawkins

We used to always say that you sounded like a pastor. You sounded like somebody's pastor.

Jericho Brown

Oh, that's great. That makes me happy.

Ajanaé Dawkins

“I’m in a mood about America…I have PTSD About the Lord.” That's the epigraph for my entire life. (Laughing).

Jericho Brown

I know. Isn’t that something?

Ajanaé Dawkins

Oh, my gosh.

Jericho Brown

It seems not to have stopped either.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Mmm.

Jericho Brown

I keep wanting not to say that. Do you know what I mean?

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Because it can't be true. And yet, I do think it's different. I do feel different about the times in which we're living. I keep thinking I'm also older.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

But I do feel like I'm having experiences my parents did not have…

Ajanaé Dawkins

Absolutely!

Jericho Brown

At this age. And that they, I talked to my dad about this, you know, earlier in the pandemic, and he was like, I just never, I've never seen anything like this.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Browm

You know, so I do think something different is going on, at every level. You know, obviously, the public health level, but also the political level. Also, things are different I think, racially, I think people are seeing each other differently. And yet there is not less racism.

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Browm

You know what I mean? It's really interesting.

Brittany Rogers

I felt like we hit 2016, and then I felt like there was like a long, kind of like downslide for me. And I kept saying like, oh, no, this is a rough season. This is a rough season. This is a rough season. And then I looked up and years had gone by. And I was like, oh, what is this? And a huge part of it was just the way that the world was moving, yeah.

Ajanaé Dawkins

And I think it was, or it is, a really jarring thing to go from like coming to my grandparents to talk about things, and them always having a reference, well, in 80, and 50 whatever. And them having all of these years with like, this is what happened then. Chile, we've seen all this before. Ain't nothing new to know that this is something new.

Jericho Brown

So has y’all’s writing habits changed?

Brittany Rogers

Since the pandemic?

Jericho Brown

Yeah.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes.

Brittany Rogers

For sure. And I don't know if this is true for both of us, but there's a lot of things conflating, because me and Brittany both started our MFA together in the pandemic. So, likely things would have been changing regardless, because we went from being writers and doing things like The Watering Hole, and you know, the different retreats and stuff we went to, to being a part of an MFA program.

Jericho Browm

Mhmm. And so you can't even track it.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah, so it's hard to track what is with the pandemic.

Jericho Brown

Which is part of my problem too, because so many other things are happening, as well. So I wasn't writing at all. And then I was pretending to write. I mean, maybe what I should say is what writing I was doing was very bad. I just wasn't writing well. And part of that I think, had to do just with illness. Not being physically well. I mean, there was a point in which I couldn't really sit up for long periods of time to write. And then I think part of it had to do with what people interpreted as success, and me having some fear of my own, of getting my own word done. But I think I'm moving past that, finally, because I've been writing again, which feels great. It's nice to know that I'm still a writer (laughs). I'm still a poet! You know what I mean? At least I feel scared in the time between poems, I'm always like, is there going to be another one? There's something in me that wonders, was that it? You know? So yeah, I'm glad that wasn't it.

Brittany Rogers

I think, especially with finishing like the MFA, we really haven't had time to think about it, because it's only been like a month or so. We've been kind of on the go, but for me, especially like I know we met at Watering Hole during like a manuscript coaching retreat. And the work that I was working on then shortly thereafter, I was like, mmm, this isn't doing like what I wanted to do to be a thing that lives in the world. Um, and so I collapsed it, and then I started something new, and then that was great. But then, now I'm like, oh, now what do I write about? Like, you know what I mean? If I don't have like, if I don't have a deadline (laughs), or this larger thing that I'm thinking on, do I still remember how to do this thing?

Jericho Browm

Yeah, yeah. That’s interesting.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Is it fear of, or was it anxiety or fear of, do I have something to say? Or is this thing going to be as effective as the work I was doing before?

Jericho Browm

Well, I think I knew I didn't have anything to say. And I think for me, writing happens much in the same way that I listen to music. I don't really listen to a lot of contemporary music, I sort of have it around me or I go out, or I hear it in passing on the radio, but I can't get excited about it until I have memories to attach to it. So I probably knew more, although, I did listen to that one a lot when it was out. I listened to Brandy's [album] Never Say Never a lot when it was out, I remember, but I felt better about it. I felt even more strongly about it seven years after it come out. Because I had the memories of what we were doing, what I was doing with my friends surrounding it. And I think with poetry, I have to literally digest experiences, before there's language to meet those experiences. And I like to start my work with language, because I think that it's most fruitful. So a lot of what I was doing without having digested experience, like living through very strange experiences for me, a lot of what I was doing was putting language on the page that wasn't arriving at any revelation or realization. And I like to see some revelation or realization, and not just word play or word games, if that makes any sense.

Brittany Rogers

It adds some level of surprise.

Jericho Brown

Yeah. But you don't know the difference. I mean, the problem was starting in language is, you're trying to figure out what you have to say. You don't know what you have to say when you first sit down at the page. So sometimes you don't figure it out. Do you know what I mean? Which is not what I'm telling people when I'm, when I'm teaching workshops, and giving readings, not what I'm telling my students. But it is true, you know, there are pages and pages of poems that are not yet poems, that are not in The Tradition, or The New Testament, or Please, you know what I mean, and won't be, you know, I won't be able to catch up to ‘em. l

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love the language of Revelation. I know that we want to ask you what's moving you these days, Jericho?

Jericho Brown

Oh, this is the question that um.

Ajanaé Dawkins

(Laughing).

Brittany Rogers

We backtrack to it, because we jumped straight in (laughs).

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

Just because I feel like it's the right, I mean really the right thing to do, I listen, I've been listening to this new Beyoncé album. So I'll, I'll say that that's what's, that's probably the thing that's moving me, because I'm just interested in how well it was put together, and how it was put together. And also, as with all musical artists, I'm interested in how her voice has changed over the years, where she has control, where she has emotion or seems like she has emotion to me. I'm really interested in her upper chest, which she is not, she's not screaming no more.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

It's like, hi, my name is Beyoncé, I'm an alto.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

You know what I mean?! Although she's hitting notes higher than she's ever, I think ever hit before, through these runs that she's doing now, which is really interesting. So I think I'm moved by that, because it always inspires me to see people do things over a long, I'm older than her actually, but it inspires me to see people do things over a long period of time. I mean, in many ways, we sort of started at the same time, because I, why am I talking about things that tell everybody how old I am?

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

But I finished college in ‘98. So you know, Destiny’s Child was coming out around then. So I always feel like, oh, as long as she can like keep going, and changing, and doing what she needs to do, then I can keep going and changing and doing what I need to do, you know what I mean? So I think I'm moved, I'm always moved by somebody who's able to like keep working, no matter how much things change, and allow themselves to change. I also think it's really wonderful to have an album that is, I don't know that anybody's been talking about this, but there's a way that we don't get to see very many Black women make use of sexual expression in their art after a certain age. And given the fact of being a mother. You know, Beyoncé’s a mother of three and maybe she's 42 or 43 years old now. 41 something like like that. So it's interesting to me that she's made this album that allows for that, and people are accepting it.

Brittany Rogers

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean?

Brittany Rogers

I absolutely know what you mean.

Jericho Brown

People haven't shut her off as the possibility, or her possibility as a sexual being or of having real sexual expression come to them that they themselves can then have as a result of having heard the song, you know what I mean?

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Which I'm really, really taken by, but maybe taken by in an opposite direction, because I'm sort of writing about everything but sex now, which is interesting.

Brittany Rogers

Ooh, spicy, what what would you say caused that shift?

Jericho Brown

Um, I don't know. I mean, other than I haven't been having a lot of it, which we need to do something about.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

The real problem is, the real question is, why are you not fucking, Jericho?

[ALL LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

The people want to know!

[OVERLAPPING VOICES]

Jericho Brown

Question is, Jericho, come on, bruh get laid! Anyway. Um, no, I think there's something in me that when I'm writing, now, I'm being probably even harder on myself. So there's something about, in my work, at least for the, not for everybody, because this, I want to read this, but I just don't want to write it right now, if I see myself pushing toward the sexual image, I kind of push away from it, because I want to see what else. Just because I want to see what else I could possibly get to. But I'm not saying no to sex if it comes up, I'm just, I just want to make sure it's not the easy thing that for me. Obviously, it's not that easy thing for other people. Do you know what I'm saying? What would be difficult for me is, I don't know, writing about the reason why the line in the middle of the road is yellow. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Brittany Rogers

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

But for somebody else that's probably like, well, I know the answer to that, that's easy. Do you understand what I mean?

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

So I think, for me, it's just about giving myself, whenever I'm writing I have to have certain boundaries. And I have to have certain levels of difficulty I'm trying to attain, you know, in all areas. That's with the line, that's what the language itself. Um, yeah

Brittany Rogers

I wanted to go back to your comment about Beyoncé, and like the longevity of her career, and because I think that's something that like fascinates me about you, is how like, how your work has been both consistent. Like, I know, Jericho’s poems, I know Jericho's voice, but also.

Jericho Brown

it's like three different books from three different people or something. you

Brittany Rogers

You know what I’m sayin’. I'm like, also has changed, like, has transformed in each space, and still kind of maintained who you are in your career, but there's a transformation with each book. Like, I don't feel like I'm reading the same book over and over again. And I'm wondering how you stay, not just connected to poetry, but how you were able to approach things differently with like, your work or each project?

Jericho Brown

You know, I could say something really positive, affirming, and inspirational. And that thing would be true, but instead (laughs) since I said that thing about how you know, sometimes the experiment doesn't work out. I'll also, I will say, to answer this question, sometimes it's really process of elimination, and that's okay. You know, like, people are always like, do you love Atlanta? And I'm like, yeah, I love Atlanta, and I know I love Atlanta, because I don't love nowhere else. (Laughing). Like, I don't want to live anywhere cold. I don't want to live anywhere that's not the South. I don't want to live anywhere that's not a city. Where do I live? Do you understand what I mean? It's starts to narrow itself down, right? I already lived in New Orleans. I already lived in Houston. I know what that's about. Do you understand what I mean? So I think I can stay committed to poetry, because it's when I look at anything else, I still want to go write a poem (laughs). Do you know what I mean? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm really, I mean, you know, I say this and then I mean I'm good at other things, but I'm really not good at other things. Do you know what I'm, like, I'm good at other things that I would not know how to monetize, that's for sure. Do you know what I’m sayin’! (Laughs). Like, so I don't, I don't think, I don't think there's anything else for me. And because there's anything else for me, I can make that its own world. Like there's a world called poetry, and nobody, you know, and nobody lives in it, but me and the other poets.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I'm saying? And it's why like, I love the poets so much, because they live in this world with me, and I can have conversations with them that I can't have with anybody else. I'm doing the selected poems of Reginald Shepherd now. And I was reading one of the books, you know, choosing poems for one from one of his books. And somebody texted me and I told him I was reading and they said, what you reading? And I was just like something for work, because I couldn't, I didn't want to say I'm reading Wrong by Reginald Shepherd, and them be like, what?

[OVERLAPPING VOICES]

Jericho Brown

It’s not The Four Agreements.

Brittany Rogers

(Laughing).

Jericho Brown

I don't feel like explaining it via text message right now.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Not the four agreements (laughs).

Jericho Brown

But seriously! Like, you tell somebody you're reading and then the answer to what you're reading is The Four Agreements, there's a knowledge there that’s sort of automatic.

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Do you understand what I mean? I sort of like that I'm a part of this high art, fine art esoteric thing, that in spite of its esoteric nature, everybody has access to it.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

It is community oriented. It is naturally in and of itself, interested in justice. Do you know what I mean? Like it is, it is, it wants nothing more than truth. Do you know what I'm saying? So I love it. And so when I'm in that world, I can make, because there's nothing else in that world, but that world and it's poets and it's poems, I can make rules for myself, in that world that I can't make outside that world. You know, I made this rule for myself, that I wasn't gonna get my mom any more gifts, because she was complaining about a gift. And I was like, okay. I won’t be given’ you no more gifts. And then, um, and then, gift time came around, you know, I don't know if it was Mother's Day or a birthday, or what, but gift time came around again. And my sister was like, what we gone send Mama? I was like, damn (laughs). Do you know what I'm saying? You know, and I was like, well, I'll just give you half (laughs). Send her whatever you want to send, I'll just give you half (laughs). You know what I mean? It’s like how I'm handling that now, but I broke the rule!

Brittany Rogers

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

I'm always breaking the rule otherwise, but in the world of poetry, I can sort of keep up with my rules. And if I break them, it’s cause I'm going to end up with a poem.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean? If I break a rule with my mama, my mama still gone act crazy.

Brittany Rogers

Listen.

Jericho Brown

She gone act crazy if I keep the rule or not.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Baby!

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I'm saying?!

Brittany Rogers

I can’t pat my foot too hard right now in case my mama listening.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Listen.

Jericho Brown

(Laughing). I love, I love it, I love it. So yeah, so that's what, I think that's how I'm able to get things done when I'm able to get things done. But you know, I don't get things done as often as I would like. I also wish I could do more things. You know, I'm taking an acting class this fall, I took one last spring. I took one back a couple of years ago. And so there's this whole other thing that I would like to see what's up, you know what I mean? But it's like, how do you see what's up with that, and you trying to write poems? And you trying to write, I'm working on a play, I'm working on a film script, I'm working on a book of essays. So I got so many things going on. And I really am a person who is very one project at a time oriented, you know what I mean? But it's harder to be one project at a time. It's easier to be one project at a time oriented when you're in your 20s. You know what I mean? And you just feel like, wait, I gotta get started. I need to do all of these things. So I think part of my difficulty lately has been about focus. And in the past when that, process of elimination, in the past when that question has come up, poetry wins. And that's how books get written. You know? Yeah, I also think it's different when you have kids and when you're a mother in particular.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Brittany Rogers

It's hard; people are always like, oh, drop this thing, and I'm like, oh, how? Tell he how (laughs). “Don’t work the extra job.” You show me how. You come look at my budget and then show me how not to work that extra job.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

I would love for you to do so (laughs).

Jericho Brown

Wow.

Brittany Rogers

“Take a nap.” Let me know in my schedule where I got time to take a nap (laughs).

Jericho Brown

Wow, Brittany, we really hit a nerve.

Brittany Rogers

Listen!

[ALL LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

It’s stressful (laughs). In terms of project stuff, with your process of elimination, poetry is usually what wins. Outside of poetry, and outside of writing work stuff, what brings you delight?

Jericho Brown

Oh wow, I love spending time with my friends. I do. I really like just hanging out with them, and like how do I explain this? There's a um, I think I'm old enough now to know how to cherish the times that I just get to do nothing with people other than be silly. And I didn't understand before that that too, was a part of life that I really needed to be happy for and cherish. I think coming out of pan-, I was really I mean, I think a lot of people were playing isolated, but I was really isolated.

Brittany Rogers

Yeah, no. 

Jericho Brown

And I think it made me hungry for those connections again, and then now that I have those connections again, I take better care of them. And they do still make me feel like writing, which is, which is really nice. And I've also realized that that's really, at the root of a lot of my work. Reading is really necessary, but life experience itself, and how you take on life experience, how you, how much you can be in the moment, of having a good time that has nothing to do with poetry. If you can really be in that moment, then that moment will probably end up being a poem, or something about the language from that moment could end up in a poem. So I, I always say that brings me joy, and I love music so much. So, you know, I listen to a lot of old stuff. I have everything on shuffle. So you know, like, there'll be like, Abraham Hicks talkin’, and then suddenly, Yolanda Adams is singing, and then suddenly, it's Future.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love that!

Jericho Brown

And then suddenly, it's like, The Temptations. Do you know I'm saying, and then suddenly, it's Sheryl Crow. You know, and I like that. I really like having various musics from various time come at me out of nowhere, for some reason, that makes me really happy. And then, you know, and I have poetry mixed in there, too. So suddenly, you know, Langston Hughes is reading a poem, Nikki Giovanni's reading a poem. That's been really useful to me. You know, to be quite honest with you, I have gotten a lot, I'm sort of, I'm getting better at praying. And making that conversation a conversation that I come away with feeling excited to have spent that time in the same way that you can feel excited to have spent time with a friend, you know, but it takes, that takes practice, like everything else.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love all of those things, especially the piece on friendship. That makes my heart smile. It makes my heart smile just imagining you being silly (laughs). Imagining you being silly just in a group of close friends, especially, in light of everything. Also, the piece on prayer. So one of the things that I'm really invested in, in your work is the like, really strong presence and influence of both the Black church, and I think the tradition of theology bucking, that shows up in your work. And a lot of times in interviews, when you talk about the Black church, you talk about it as something that was like a part of your upbringing, and like your first introduction to storytelling and all of these things. So I'm wondering, can you talk more about what you turn towards now in terms of sacredness? And like, is there, has there been maybe a shift in the sacred, and divine, and what impacts your work now?

Jericho Brown

I mean, there is a shift because of the amount of time I'm spending in a Black church. I still have access to it, in many ways, because somebody's always going to send me a sermon, or if I, you know, or if I go on Instagram, there's going to be, you know, Marvin Winans talk singin’, sing talkin’. Do you know what I mean? I still have access to all of the music. So I still know what's been going on. I mean, I don't completely know what's been going on, because I don't know how the church got so conservative, that they want it to be like the Black church running up behind people like Donald Trump is weird to me.

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yes.

Jericho Brown

I don't know how I missed, I was taking a nap.

Brittany Rogers

(Laughing).

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean?

Brittany Rogers

Yes, absolutely.

Jericho Brown

It was not that way. I think something about George Bush's presidency began to shift that because of those faith based initiatives, which was smart on the part of him in the Republican Party, but really not so smart on the part of big Black mega churches, because, you know, you're not serving people, you're not helping people if you have them making political decisions that hurt them. I'm sorry to say that. I hate to talk about this.

Ajanaé Dawkins

No, no, that's fine.

Jericho Brown

But it's, it's just.

Ajanaé Dawkins

It is a big theological shift. The Black church has always been sexually conservative, but has never been liberation theology. And in terms of the presence of, like, racial things, has always been on the more liberal end, but it's been conservative always in terms of sexuality, and you know, all of, in gender.

Jericho Brown

Yeah, but the church has become, the Black church is seems to me has become completely capitalist in a way that it was not, or at least not to my eye, when I was a kid. I mean, definitely not before the full gospel movement, maybe that start, maybe something about the full gospel movement, like really took that off. I mean, really had that take off, I should say. I just it's really scary for me because I know when I was a kid growing up at the church, it was giving me shelter in many ways. It was nurturing me, and now I don't see how it could be all that nurturing for young people, which is why it seems, also the other thing that's happening in the Black church is that people aren't going anymore.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yep!

Jericho Brown

Young people, in particular, are not going anymore. And then the church's response to that is to still be (laughs) you know what it was, and to believe so desperately and deeply in hierarchies that clearly don't exist, you know what I mean?

Brittany Rogers

Yeah, for sure.

Jericho Brown

But when I'm writing, you know, I think of poetry, I think of reading poems. In particular, if you read (inaudible) poem as an act of prayer, I think of writing poems as an act of prayer, because it is an internal conversation that the self is having with the higher self. One way you know that you're praying when you write a poem if you're a poet, and I imagine a lot of poets are listening to this podcast, is that when you look back of the poem, you don't know who the hell wrote it.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Mmmm.

Jericho Brown

(Laughing). You know what I’m sayin’?!

Brittany Rogers

Are you like, where did that come from (laughs)?

Jericho Brown

Yeah! You like, oh, I snapped.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean?

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah. Yeah.

Jericho Brown

So you know, I do think that there's a lot of that that's still there for me, and definitely in the cadences of the work itself. And in terms of what I can pull in illusion, and in image, you know, a lot of that still is coming from the Black church.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

You know, so even in that last poem, when I say I have PTSD about the Lord, you know, that's on the face of it, that's sort of public, but that's also personal.

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean? So I think it's all still there. But the opposite has been important to or what people think of as the opposite. You know, the sacred is important, but in poetry, you must have the profane.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes.

Jericho Brown

Just as much as you have the sacred. As a matter of fact, in any poem, anytime you write something down, one of the things that I'm always doing is I'm trying to make sure it's opposite soon gets there. Soon as I write something down, I'm like, well, the opposite needs to be there too. The sound opposite, the sense opposite, the image opposite. How do you get the opposites in the poem? Because you want the poem to be like your life.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Your life is not one way. The poems are not Hallmark cards, you know what I mean? Get a Hallmark card on Father's Day that says everything great about your dad, and it is not lying. But that is not your relationship with your dad, when it's not Father's Day.

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

There's some other stuff going on that Hallmark cards are not made to say.

Brittany Rogers

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean? But poems, on the other hand, just tell the damn truth. So you're gonna get the sacred, and the profane about your damn daddy. And the question is, can you read that truth and love your daddy any way? Do you, do you know what I mean? That's, I mean, for me, that's sort of the magic involved with writing poetry and therefore, why poetry in and of itself, is, is faith oriented. Right? You know, that magic is like, that's heavenly, right? That’s spiritual.

Brittany Rogers

I love the nuance of that answer, and being able to hold, something that can hold all of those spaces in the same container and not shift, like, what the container is saying, or what the container is doing, I think is super, super valuable.

Jericho Brown

Well, your poems are doing this all the time, Brittany, you know. Like, your poems are actually very good at being like, I love this thing I hate (laughs). Like, you're actually, you know, like, that's part of the project of your, or at least last I checked, of your overall work. You know what I mean. And that's um, that's what we ought to be I think in many ways striving toward, you know, as writers, because then, then when people read our work, they don't feel foreign to themselves. Do you know what I mean? Which is the trouble of, of the United States right now.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

You know, the United States, I mean politically, I mean, and capitalism is really interested in people feeling foreign to themselves, you know. If you're, if you're all about people as a commodity, and people as labor, right, then all you care about is what they can be as a work oriented thing, as a work force. Therefore, when those people who are also capitalist start having feelings that have nothing to do with work, they feel foreign to themselves. Like, who is that? How dare I have these feelings that have nothing to do with paying for something? (Laughs). Do you know what I mean? Or consumer.

Brittany Rogers

Or consuming something.

Jericho Brown

Yeah.

Brittany Rogers

So we were talking about America and her raggedy ass a few seconds ago (laughs). And her raggedy ass. I mean, I suppose in some spaces, it's taboo. It's certainly not taboo here, but it makes me wonder about like as poets, right, and capitalism, and all of those things kind of intertwined, I think there's an expectation that we talk about certain things and not others, or as public facing people maybe there's a pressure to talk about certain things, and not others. We talk about our writing, we could talk about craft, but maybe not like about politics, or maybe not say the taboo things, even if they're not political. And I think I'm wondering, especially for someone who's had like a career as long as yours is, is there a way in which you felt like you had to maybe curate your voice or curate your work early on? And if so, has that shifted at all?

Jericho Brown

I don't, you know, I don't think I was conscious of it. But looking back, I do think that happened. I think, for instance, in my first book, the poems that are particularly queer come later in the book. So and I also think that one of the reasons the second, one of the reasons the second person is used so often in that book is I had, I anticipated a hostile reader, because I knew the material was what the material was, do you know what I mean? And so I thought, at that time, I thought, I'm gonna write this thing, and it's gonna make some people hate me. I wasn't wrong about that (laughing). But what's interesting is that something in me cared, do you know what I'm saying? Um, so I think all kinds of things like that happen, and you don't even know that they're, I didn't. Sometimes these things happen because of you, and you don't sit down and make them happen, they're just a part of the world you're living in. And so that's how you guide your life. Yeah, I think earlier in my career, there were definitely things that I was doing, because I thought, this is what I need to do. I mean, even in how I would dress to give a reading, or what I thought was okay to say, or what I thought was okay to read. I was definitely not reading queer poems earlier. You know, they would be in the book, but I wouldn’t read them. I think I read them much more freely now. Although, even now probably not everywhere. So, yeah.

Brittany Rogers

Looking at the influences that we have that show up in like our writing, or who we are as people, we like to ask folks, if you could name three people across any genre, that someone who did not know you or your work, might have to study to understand you, what three folks would you choose? And again, it's across like any genre in the world. Like, quite frankly, you got to go into a Detroit beauty supply store to understand me as a person, or to understand my aesthetic, right? So.

Jericho Brown

That’s smart. That makes sense, actually, yeah, that's so smart.

Brittany Rogers

(Giggles).

Jericho Brown

That's really smart. So there's a kind of music that I think really flowered in the 70s. And I associate in particular with Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind and Fire. And because I want to put that in one category, I can't say Stevie Wonder, you know what I mean? So I'm just gonna say that, whatever that is.

Ajanaé & Brittany

Yeah.

Jericho Brown

Whatever has like as many instruments as possible. (Laughing). Sort of working at the same time that somebody is also singing as an instrument, but singing crazy.

Brittany Rogers

Okay.

Jericho Brown

Do you know what I mean?

Brittany Rogers

No, I know exactly the genre that you mean (laughs).

Jericho Brown

That's one thing that also feels good, and is lyrically you know, those songs by those, by those people are so um, so interested in lyrics that are, are soulful in and of themselves, do y’all know what I mean? When you listen to Earth, Wind and Fire songs, and you hear the lyrics, it's like, they're like, it's all motivational speeches. (Laughs) do you know what I'm saying? Which is, you know, something else I like. I liked that about trap music, too. So there's that. I think that's one of the genres. And those are two authors in those genres. Right. And then, I would say, I would say, American poetry in the 1950s is probably the second, the late 50s in particular, it's probably the early 60s. Cause you know Plath kills herself in ‘63 I think, maybe ‘61, but probably ‘63. So something about that era, something from maybe, I would say ‘50 to ‘63. Something that includes a ‘64 or five, something that includes Ariel something, that includes Howl, something that includes, something that includes Black Mountain, something that includes deep image, you know, Robert Bly, Robert Duncan, all the Roberts. You know if you reading a Robert in American poetry, you probably doin’ the right thing.

Brittany Rogers

(Laughs).

Jericho Brown

They’re a lot of Roberts. I don't know if y’all noticed that.

Ajanaé Dawkins

There are.

Jericho Brown

It’s like a lot of Roberts, anyway, so I think it’s strange. So um, so I think that would be the second genre. And then, what's the third thing? I guess it’s the church, Black church, which we talked about earlier, that would be the third genre. You know, and all that that includes, the preachers and the singers. People talkin’, you know, Black people talk a certain way, particularly when they have to talk in front of the church, but at church.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes.

Jericho Brown

That is so uh, still completely not the way the English language is supposed to work, and yet lifted into this dignified manner of the English language, which I think is…

Brittany Rogers

Giving honor to God.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

Yeah, which is really beautiful.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Who is the head my life and my household.

Jericho Brown

Yeah.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Even, even the way cadences shift when you move from announcements to testimony.

Jericho Brown

Mhmm.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yeah, it's my jam.

Brittany Rogers

I like that answer, very consistent.

[MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING]

Brittany Rogers

We got time take a break. If you want to go to the bathroom you can. If you want to drink something you can.

[MUSIC CONTINUES}

Ajanaé Dawkins

Okay, so we are going to be playing Fast Punch. Would you like to be a pessimist or an optimist?

Jericho Brown

An optimist.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Lovely.

Jericho Brown

All the Black people just got mad at me.

Ajanaé & Brittany

(Laughing).

Jericho Brown

Optimist?

Ajanaé Dawkins

We gotta learn how to hope a little bit, how to see the glass half full.

Jericho Brown

He’s not on board. No, yeah, I'm gonna pick optimist.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Lovely. So we are going to give you some categories, and you are going to tell us the best thing in that category. And it’ll be kind of quick, kind of fast.

Jericho Brown

Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. No problem. So don't elaborate? Don't do that thing I do where I have to keep running my mouth?

Brittany Rogers

(Laughing).

Ajanaé Dawkins

If you want to you can give like a tib, but just not that big.

Jericho Brown

I’ll do my best. I think I understand.

Brittany Rogers

Alright, best type of meter. Like in a poem. Best type of meter.

Jericho Brown

Iambic tetrameter.

Brittany Rogers

Ooh, okay. Knew it was gonna be fancy. Okay.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Best hymn.

Jericho Brown

“You'll Never Walk Alone” I hope that’s a hymn.

Brittany Rogers

Best television sitcom.

Jericho Brown

Okay, I have a poem about the Jeffersons that I'm going to read today. So I'm choosing The Jeffersons, but I don't really know if that's my answer. I think my answer might be The Golden Girls.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Love that. Best instrument.

Jericho Brown

The trumpet.

Brittany Rogers

Best thing about living in the South.

Jericho Brown

The food.

Brittany Rogers

Okay (laughs).

Ajanaé Dawkins

I felt that my spirit.

Jericho Brown

But also like, the men (laughs). Okay, sorry. Mmm. It’s just true. Okay.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Best music genre.

Jericho Brown

R&B.

Brittany Rogers

Facts. Best card game.

Jericho Brown

I want to say Spades, but I sort of want to say Black Jack. I’ll say Spades. Uno. My new thing has been uno.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Best poem title.

Jericho Brown

Best poem title?

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes.

Jericho Brown

Oh, wow. I never thought about that. That's great. Um, there's a poem by one of my former teachers, good poet named Kay Murphy, and it's called “Learning Not to Want”. I always loved that title.

Brittany Rogers

Okay, so you won the game.

[CROWD CHEERING SOUND EFFECT]

Jericho Brown

I did. I won. I told y’all, I told y’all I was gone win. I cannot wait, I'm actually calling everybody and be like, y’all, Brittany and Ajanaé, they tried to play this game with me, I don’t know why. I killed them, I whopped they tail. Ooh my goodness, they came up with the game and couldn’t even play. It’s so ridiculous; I won the first time I played. It’s embarrassing.

Brittany Rogers

Oh my God! (Laughing).

Ajanaé Dawkins

Jericho, please!

Jericho Brown

Anybody want to play basketball?

Brittany Rogers

I can only picture you talkin’ shit over a spades table. Like.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I will play basketball.

Jericho Brown

You will?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I will play basketball.

Jericho Brown

I would love to play basketball.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I just I just joined the intramural team.

Jericho Brown

Oh really?

Ajanaé Dawkins

I did. I’m very excited!

Brittany Rogers

But so, the the trick is that the prize for winning the game is that we get to hear you read another poem.

Ajanaé Dawkins

So we won.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Jericho Brown

Okay, I’m going to read a poem, and I just, and when I say, just, I mean I really just wrote it so therefore, it might not be the best reading because I haven't read it out loud. This is my first time reading it in a public situation.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Exclusive!

Brittany Rogers

We love an exclusive.

Jericho Brown

You know I think this will come out maybe in November or something like that. Right? So by the time this comes out, the poem will have a different everything. Here we go. [Recites unreleased poem, “Sitcom”].

Jericho Brown

That’s the poem. So I messed up the reading, but I really haven't read it aloud, and it's got some link to it that I'm not used to, so I have to be, I have to stay in it to read it.

Brittany Rogers

When you got to the section about they killed my first girlfriend and I love them. I'm like, whew.

Again, the Detroit girl in me was like, whew.

Jericho Brown

Yeah.

Brittany Rogers

Okay, I think we got to stop here so that we don't get put out.

Jericho Brown

Well, let's not get put out. We must be overtime already the way they laughin’.

Brittany Rogers

(Laughing).

Jericho Brown

Bye.

Brittany Rogers

We do our, yeah.

Jericho Brown

Is this the public bye?

Brittany Rogers

No, this (laughing).

[BACKGROUND MUSIC CUES]

Jericho Brown

Let me say bye. Bye.

Ajanaé & Brittany

(Laughing).

Jericho Brown

Bye, everybody. Thank y’all! You’ve been the best.

Brittany Rogers

You’ve been the best, Jericho. (Laughing).

Jericho Brown

Thank you. Love you.

Brittany Rogers

Love you back.

Jericho Brown

Y’all be good. Send me money.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Jericho, the way I appreciate you.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Ajanaé Dawkins

That was such a fun interview.

Brittany Rogers

It was (laughs). I don’t think I expected to laugh that way.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I did. I remember, I remember the last time I saw Jericho. (Laughing).

Brittany Rogers

Oh, listener it was at The Watering Hole. Shout out to The Watering Hole. I think we went in 2018 for the manuscript fellowship.

Ajanaé Dawkins

That was 2019.

Brittany Rogers

Was it 2019?

Ajanaé Dawkins

It was 2019. Because it was the year I got married.

Brittany Rogers

Listen, every year has been the same year (laughs) for the past however many years. It’s all the same day.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Time is a construct. Yeah, and I just remember laughing, laughing. I still laugh at some of the things that Jericho says in 2019.

Brittany Rogers

I think talking to Jericho today made me think about delight in a very specific way. I think delight is like a particular niche of joy, if you will. And because joy is something that I'm not often thinking about, I extra am not thinking about the delight. But talking to Jericho and hearing him be excited about things and laughing about things. Even when it's stuff like just the joy of hanging out with your homies. I think I'm going to try to carry that with me as a pursuit for this year.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I absolutely love that. I love that. Especially thinking about the necessity of delight and pleasure that has nothing to do with the work, whatever the work is for you. For some folks, that's multiple kinds of work. I think for me, I realized I really love things that appeal in some capacity to like my senses. So like one of the reasons I love cooking is because I love exactly the way I make my food. I love that I know exactly the texture, taste combinations that are going to set me off. Like everybody else is like, I love that. Or if I can choose to get my eyebrows, nails, toes done, or a massage, I'm always going with a massage. I think that, and then as far as things that just bring me lots of pleasure and delight, it's like things that appeal to like my senses that make me feel some kind of pleasure, and then like relationships, and then even that is somehow tied to pleasure like being with Brittany, yes. But like being cuddled with Brittany while we're warm, and I'm laying on her and she feels soft like that's the top tier. (Laughing).

Brittany Rogers

I can’t with you.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Cause why we together cold? You know, like, why is it snowing? Why are we stumbling through the rain? Like why?

Brittany Rogers

Distressing. So I'm thinking about things they bring me delight; gossiping with the mother’s board, which is what I call my mom, my aunts, my granny. That I think is delightful. I think it's a moment of seeing them with their hair down. And also I think that beauty routines delight me. So like, the moment when I sit in front of my nail tech, and I tell her I don't know what I want done, and she comes back with a masterpiece. I find that delightful. Like that brings me genuine, genuine joy.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love getting the surprise of those. Like the surprise pictures of like, look what she did!

Brittany Rogers

Because I never know what I want. I never have a plan, but seeing somebody create something, and you know what it is, best, now that I think about it, I think is that, I think it is that she knows me so well, and that I trust that she knows me well, and I'm like, okay, cool, whatever it comes out. It's gonna be great. And then when it's great, I'm like, wow, this is really (laughs) this is really a great long standing thing.

Ajanaé Dawkins

I love that for you. And I love the mother's board thing. I love the moment of realizing like, y'all think I'm grown enough to tell me some tea.

Brittany Rogers

Listen!

Ajanaé Dawkins

Like y'all! Especially after years of being told to stay at a grown folks business to have the grown folks business brought to you! Crazy!

Brittany Rogers

And I just, I say quiet. You know, I give my occasional, mhmm, so they know I’m listening, but I don't pat my foot too much.

Ajanaé Dawkins

You can’t give no advice.

Brittany Rogers

Listen. Otherwise, I’ma get kicked out the tea.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Brittany Rogers

But I find that delightful.

Ajanaé Dawkins

That is pure delight. Aw, man. Okay, best, do you have anybody you want to thank today?

Brittany Rogers

You know what, since we were just talking about nails, I’ma thank Mika, my nail tech magnetic in Detroit, um, if y'all come visit, listeners, come visit me, you got to hit Mika up.

Ajanaé Dawkins

So I want to thank the woman who owns Native Moon Apothecary in Cincinnati, who sold me this gorgeous, gorgeous purple flower petal that like makes this blue purple tea. And it helps with nerves and anxiety. And it's, it's just so nice, and she was so sweet, and kind to me. It was the highlight of my weekend.

Brittany Rogers

I'm glad for you, best. I know how you feel about your herbs. That makes me smile.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Yes.

[BACKGROUND MUSIC BEGINS]

Brittany Rogers

We also would like to thank Dani, and the staff at Bravo Ocean Studios, the Poetry Foundation, Itzel Blancas, Ydalmi Noriega, Elon Sloan, Cin Pim and Ombie Productions.

Ajanaé Dawkins

And before we close out, we would love to let you know about a new podcast that brings you closer to an iconic American poet, Emily Dickinson, and connects you with some of the great American poets of now.

Brittany Rogers

The podcast is called The Slave is Gone, and is co-hosted by out guest this episode, the one and only Jericho Brown and Brionne Janae, also known as “Breezy”.

Ajanaé Dawkins

On each show, Jericho and Breezy take an episode of Apple TV's award winning series, Dickinson, and talk back to it. They break down what's emotionally true, and what's historically true. With the help of scholar, Aífe Murray, and today's leading poets.

Brittany Rogers

The conversations on The Slave is Gone are irreverent and informative. Mixing after show gossip with the deep realities of Emily Dickinson's America, and ours. And always, it comes back to the poems Dickinson, and those of our guest poets, including Danez Smith, Evie Shockley, Tracy K. Smith, and the new US Poet Laureate, Ada Límon.

Ajanaé Dawkins

Please subscribe to The Slave is Gone on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts, as well as to VS. Thank you so much for listening with us. Please look out for our resource sheet. Until next time.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]