April = Poetry

Here's to making up some ground on all the amazing collections I have missed.

Jericho Brown's poems are music in your mind or mouth. I can only imagine the energy that he brings to an in-person reading. It's said to be electric. And yes, the cover of The Tradition is perfect, featuring art by L. Ralphi Burgess. And yes, it won the Pulitzer Prize. And yes, it shouts and punches at times (see: "Bullet Points;" see also: "Good White People") and sings softly in a lover's ear at others. Though every poem offers something golden, I think my favorite is "Foreday in the Morning," with its rolling condemnation of whoever "started the lie that we are lazy" and Brown's wish "to wake that bastard up / At foreday in the morning, toss him in a truck, and drive him under God / Past every bus stop in America to see all those black folk / Waiting to go work for whatever they want. A house? A boy / To keep the lawn cut? Some color in the yard? My God, we leave things green."