Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown (born April 14, 1976) is an American poet and writer. Born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Brown has worked as an educator at institutions such as the University of Houston, the University of San Diego, and Emory University. His poems have been published in The Nation, New England Review, The New Republic, Oxford American, and The New Yorker, among others. He released his first book of prose and poetry, Please, in 2008. His second book, The New Testament, was released in 2014. His 2019 collection of poems, The Tradition, garnered widespread critical acclaim.

Brown has won several accolades throughout his career, including a Whiting Award, an American Book Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Early life and education Born Nelson Demery III and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Brown later changed his name and graduated from Dillard University, where he was initiated as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, through the Beta Phi chapter, in the fall of 1995. He also graduated from the University of New Orleans with an MFA, and from the University of Houston with a Ph.D.

Career Brown was a teaching fellow in the English department at the University of Houston from 2002 to 2007, a visiting professor at San Diego State University's MFA program in spring 2009, and an assistant professor of English at the University of San Diego. He has also taught at numerous conferences and workshops, including the Iowa Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. He is an associate professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Previously, he worked as a speechwriter for the mayor of New Orleans.

In 2011, Brown received the 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.

His first book, Please (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, a book of poetry titled The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), won the 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Brown's third book, a collection of poems titled The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), garnered widespread critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Awards 2024 MacArthur Fellowship 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2019 Finalist, National Book Award for Poetry 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry 2009–2010 fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University

Works Articles

Interviews

Books

Poems