Pulitzer-Prize Winner Jericho Brown Inspires Laughter, Tears, and Joy at 17th Robert Price Poetry Festival
- John-Michael (Jean-Michel) Valat De Cordova
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
(CHESTERTOWN, MD) – Last Saturday night, the MacArthur Genius Grant Recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown inspired tears, laughter, and love at his reading of a collection of his own poetry during the 17th Annual Robert E. Price Poetry Festival. During a Q&A session after he reads his poetry, Mr. Brown said that he wants to be remembered as a “love poet” and that “all poetry is political.” he said to the audience that he hopes they make love to the person sitting next to them, saying that “I know I helped someone there”. He further stated that all poetry is either trying to push the status quo to be something different or trying to maintain it and keep things as they are, making that poetry inert and unquestionably political.
Brown also inspired tears in himself, remembering and reminiscing about all the people that he missed, and all the people that he won’t be able to talk to anymore because they’re gone. But, don’t be fooled by this; this poetry reading was, by all means, joyous and full of laughter and love, undoubtedly bringing joy and thoughtful reflection to most, if not all, members of the audience.
Brown also referred multiple times to the writing workshop that he held on campus earlier during the Jazz festival, noting that many members of the audience had also attended his poetry workshop earlier in the week. Brown also said of poets that they are not “good” in the sense that they do not necessarily live and experience life better than anyone else, and also in the sense that they can be bad people at certain times.
Brown said of his writing process that it was (relatively) short, and he would even be frustrated sometimes when his friends would say that a poem that he would send them seemed “done,” but he insisted that it couldn’t be since he had written it at midnight. He also said of his writing days that the number of poems that he was churning out (three or four a day) not only excited him and exhilarated him, but also scared him. At the time, he thought that the lord was allowing him to write so much because he thought that God was about to take him.
The poetry that Brown recited touched on multiple themes, primarily growing up black and queer in America, and at points focusing on topics as varied as his relationship with his religious father after coming out as a queer person, a persona poem from the perspective of Janis Joplin, and the repressive reality of police brutality against African Americans and brown people in the United States.
The audience at the festival had a broadly positive reaction to the poetry reading and Q&A, one member of the audience stating that she thought the poetry reading was “good. Very good” and that she didn’t necessarily have a favorite among the poems that Brown read because she didn’t have a copy of his book.
This 17th annual Jazz Festival was made possible and free to the public by the Kent County Arts Council, which allowed people to attend the event for free with reserved tickets, and also allowed people to walk in while the event was happening. The event ended with a call to action by one of its organizers, asking that people give the five dollars that he knows you have so that they may organize an 18th, 34th, and whatever is 17 after 34 Robert E. Price Poetry Festival.
After the event, Brown stayed around to sign copies of his book & chat with patrons of the event, next to a stand of people who set up and sold copies of his poetry books. Browns read work analyzed his identity as a queer black man, how those adjectives at points in time conflict with each other, and how they both magnify his oppression under American society and cultural norms.
