Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an M.F.A. from the University of New Orleans and a B.A. from Dillard University, and he has served as poetry editor at Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in Callaloo, The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner. The recipient of the Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego where he teaches creative writing.  Western Michigan University's New Issues Poetry & Prose published his first book, Please.

Brown's name has been flying around quite a bit recently--with multiple poets either praising his collection Please (New Issues) or e-mailing me directly to ask if I'd interview him. That's not typical. So, I hunted him down, and he took some time out of his busy schedule to let me interview him.

His collection Please was a great read from the very beginning. He even names the first section Repeat, which is funny, because I felt like repeating the experience of reading the beginning once I finished the end. But I'll let his words do the talking--this being one of my favorite pieces in the collection:

Why I Cannot Leave You

You bring home the food. I'm your hungry man,
Captive damsel dragged by the hair from her favorite
Streetlight to the trap of your tower, hollow icebox,
No magnets with things-to-do. No rules. It wouldn't
Be fair--you bring home the food--you can't read
Or write. I pace, check the window for my hunter. You
Bring home food and toss it onto the card table.
My teeth barely miss my fingertips--I rip
Into the bag. You like to kiss me, my mouth
Packed with the faintest franchise you could find, animal
Blood at each lip. Say carnivore, and I kiss back. I eat
My meat rare. You bare your sharpest grin. Bum
I say I love, you're my place to stay. We're against the law.
No one keeps me big as you. Fatten me, sweet ogre.
Get me some meat. Bring home food. Feed.

*****

What are you currently up to?

I'm trying to get a hold of any footage I can that shows news anchors Max Robinson and Jessica Savitch in action.  I'm working on a few poems about and in the voices of the two of them as well as poems based on scriptures from the Bible.  The second book is tentatively titled The New Testament, and I just learned that I got a Bunting Fellowship which should give me plenty of time for writing.  

I'm grateful that I've been traveling a lot in order to give readings.  I now get to meet really interesting people from all over the nation who love good poetry.  Also, I try to make sure I have enough reading material to keep me busy on planes.

Other than that, I go to the gym a lot.  I eat a lot.  I talk with friends over the phone a lot.  I teach a lot and read a lot in preparation for teaching.  I usually go clubbing when I get the chance because I like flirting and dancing.

Please is your debut collection of poems. How long did you go about getting them together and published?

The oldest drafts of some poems in Please were written in 2000, and I wrote them when I first attended the Cave Canem workshop/retreat for African American poets.  Some poems were first drafted 2007, the same year New Issues asked to publish the book. 

But seven years seems dishonest when I think of how I'm prone to reading and thinking more than to writing.  In the last eight years of my life, there were times I couldn't stop writing. Over a short period of weeks, I'd have many drafts of very different things and begin to think I may be quite literally possessed. Once, I actually had a car accident trying to get some scribbling done while driving. These periods were thrilling for me, but during them, I felt vulnerable in a way I have a hard time characterizing.

At other times, for periods as long as two years within the last eight, I didn't write at all. I couldn't even think to revise. This is, of course, painful and scary in a very different way. Today, I think I managed to get through these silences because I was much more interested in figuring how to write poems than I was in how to write a book. I had no goal other than the poem itself and could almost satisfy my yearnings to write by reading and discovering other poets. 

The voices are strong in Please. Is there a type of sound or voice (or both) you go for in your writing?

I think of writing, first, as a process of listening and, second, as a process of embodying.  I don't know that I "go for" anything in particular because I try and leave as much as I can to instinct, intuition, and reflex—even in the final stages of revision. 

For me, poems usually begin with a line from which I do some vocal repeating and pushing in order to generate other lines.  The lines that follow the first one often mimic the sound or make what seems to me some sort of counter-sound based on the first one.  Then, because I'm so interested in both music and voice, I find myself trying to figure the personality of the sounds as I am composing.  At some point in the writing of a first draft, I start to take on the characteristics of the voice that is asking to be channeled.  An example of this might be something as simple as punching the computer if the voice is pissed to the point of violence. 

You have a very nice website. Did you put it together, or did your publisher? Also, how helpful do you think having a website is in spreading the word about your writing?

Thanks, Robert.  Jerichobrown.com is the brainchild of Nick Walker, one of my undergraduate students at the University of San Diego.  He's an amazing poet, and he writes wonderful fiction too.  Nick and I argued for more than a semester.  He insisted that the website would be necessary, and I kept reassuring him that I had enough to do without thinking about ways to publicize my book and spending mounds of money to do it. 

At any rate, Nick started making moves without me being aware of it, and the next thing I knew he had come in contact with Arlene Valdes, a very talented web designer who was looking to build a portfolio for her business.  The portfolio would include a few clients for whom she'd create sites for one-tenth of what I imagine she charges now.  Nick and Arlene made all the decisions and did all the work.  My only job was to provide them with what I had already gathered for New Issues: a bio, the blurbs, the dates for readings, and of course, a few poems.

I don't think having a website hurts, but Buddha never had one, and the word spread pretty decently about things he had to say. 

Your bio mentions that you previously worked as a speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans. What was that job like? And did your experience as a speechwriter help with your poetry?

I served the City of New Orleans for four years working for Mayor Marc H. Morial, who is now President and CEO of the National Urban League.  He's an amazing leader who made his love for that city absolutely contagious.  He is also a major role model for me as my fraternity brother and the man willing to take a chance on me and give me my first job right out of college.  (The word "give" is supremely important here, considering the desperate shape I was in.)

A speechwriter goes into each speech knowing the message and figuring the best way to communicate the message as he goes.  A poet figures ways of communicating and wonders if he has a message.  I prefer the latter because it gives me a chance to question beliefs that I myself hold dear.  There is no room for such questions when working to drive a message home.

While researching you online, I noticed people commenting positively on your readings. Do you have any special reading tips for other poets?

Slow down.

Who are you currently reading?

Today, I read Versed by Rae Armantrout, some Gwendolyn Brooks, a few poems online by Rodney Jack and Wayne Johns, some George Oppen, some C.S. Lewis, a little bit from Barbara Walters'memoir Audition, and the Bible.   

If you could pass on only one piece of advice to other poets, what would it be?

Make love.

*****

To learn more about Jericho, go to www.jerichobrown.com.

To learn more about his publisher, go to www.wmich.edu/~newissue/.