The Lindsay J. Cropper Memorial Writer Series welcomes Jericho Brown, Ph.D.

Jericho Brown, Ph.D., a former USD Creative Writing professor and recipient of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, is the first Black writer to be featured in the Cropper Series for this academic year

Brittany Lang / Feature Editor / The USD Vista

The USD English Department, in order to uphold its commitment to the “enduring work of anti-racism” following the death of George Floyd and the strengthening of the Black Lives Matter movement, announced that the 2020-2021 Lindsay J. Cropper Memorial Writer Series will be a celebration of Black creative writing exclusively. 

Through the use of the written word, the department has made a promise to embrace more diversity in order to cultivate an understanding of what the Black experience entails in the United States. They have also reaffirmed their mission to stand in solidarity with the Black community and other marginalized groups. 

On Thursday Sept. 3, the Cropper Series welcomed the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, Jericho Brown, Ph.D., for a reading and discussion for their first event of the academic year.

Brown grew up in Louisiana and holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans. He graduated with a BA from Dillard University in 1998, and went on to earn his Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston. Brown is currently an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.

He is the recipient of many prestigious awards which include the Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, as well the National Endowment for the Arts. His first book, “Please” (2008), was the recipient of the American Book Award. In addition, Brown’s “The New Testament” (2014) won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by multiple writing associations.

Brown crafted a collection of poems for his book “The Tradition” (2019) which was not only the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize this past May, but has appeared in a myriad of esteemed magazines, online news sources, and has been gaining much traction across multiple social media platforms.

“The Tradition” questions why and how human beings have grown accustomed to terror in countless aspects of our lives, and the bigger implications our complacency about atrocities such as rape to mass shootings has. Through his elegant use of prose, he interrupts this complacency by introducing the ways which we can escape from it. 

The Cropper Series commenced on Thursday with an introduction of Brown from the director of the series, Brad Melekian, Ph.D. He began by giving insight into Brown’s career as a writer, proceeding to then praise his immense success and the powerful and poignant poetry Brown has gifted to the world. 

“When reading through his work, one is struck by the clarity and precision in which Jericho Brown sees the world,” Melekian said. “His poetry is unflinching, unrelenting, and precise.”

While Brown was discussing his writing it became evident that he does not seek to shield readers from the violent realities of life, and particularly those which are inflicted upon Black bodies. His intention is to bring them to light in the rawest form possible. However, in a seemingly contradictory way, his poetry is founded in faith and hope.

Brown began working as a creative writing professor at USD in 2008 which was his first full-time job after finishing his studies. He left in the fall of 2012 for his current position at Emory University. When speaking on his past career at USD, Brown had nothing but praise. 

“(USD) is the place where I learned to teach… where I learned the importance of teaching, and I felt like I was really taught that by the other professors there,” Brown said. “There was real care for how we could do that together there.” 

Brown began his reading by reciting a passage from the second part of his essay titled “Faith in the Now,” which touched on his love and immense appreciation for poetry. 

“One of poetry’s more thrilling attributes is its ability to outlive the poet… the poem is a poem because it asks us to reconsider ourselves, what we hold dear and what we despise,” Brown said. “Through the poem itself we cannot return to the world unbothered.”

He proceeded to follow this up with a recitation of the lyrics to the Negro National Anthem which were included in his essay — a song Brown learned in his infancy in the pews of his local church. This piece is something that resonates with him deeply and has had an influence on the subject of his poetry writing. After reading, Brown continued on to explain the connection between God and the Black community.

“Because we insisted that belief in God could be the only explanation for our survival on this planet; belief and freedom were inextricably tied,” Brown said.

Brown then began to recite some of his most loved poems from “Please,” “The New Testament,” and “The Tradition.” One of these poems was titled “Foreday in the Morning,” a moving piece that speaks volumes of the unrelenting perseverance of the Black community in America.
 

“I love Black women / Who plant flowers as sheepish as their sons. By the time the blooms / Unfurl themselves for a few hours of light, the women who tend them / Are already at work. Blue. I’ll never know who started the lie that we are / Lazy,” Brown recited.

One of the other poems Brown included in his reading was titled “Bullet Points,” which is an unapologetic poem he wrote on police brutality. He was prompted to do so after specifically learning of the individuals who had supposedly committed suicide while in police custody. 

“But I promise you, I trust the maggots / Who live beneath the floorboards / of my house to do what they must / To any carcass more than I trust / An officer of the law of the land / To shut my eyes like a man / Of God might,” Brown quoted. 

The following poem Brown chose to read was titled “Stand,” a profound sentiment of his feelings towards his lost loves. 

“Somebody died while / We made love. Some- / Body killed somebody / Black. I thought then / Of holding you / As a political act,” he recited. 

Brown asserted the fact that poetry can often touch us and teach us more through evoking powerful emotions within ourselves, in a way that nothing else can. It presents us with a better understanding of experiences we may not have experienced ourselves.

The goal of the Cropper Series this semester is not just to introduce Black writers to the community at USD so that their written word can be used as tools for educating ourselves on the Black experience and anti-racism, but to also simply celebrate the remarkable talent that all individuals from all walks of life have. 

Brown touched on the undeniable truth that because racism is so embedded into our society, Black writers, particularly those who are Black men, are not seen as having this kind of elegance and creativity. He believes these destructive socialized ways of thinking only serve to hinder members of the Black community from expanding their creative horizons.

The USD English department this year has made a promise to celebrate the diversity that exists in the world of poetry and literature, doing their part to ensure that this detrimental typecasting will someday be a thing of the past.