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.

Life
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.

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 poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, The Nation, New England Review, The New Republic, Oxford American, The New Yorker, Enkare Review, and The Best American Poetry. He serves as an Assistant Editor at Callaloo.

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.

Brown published his fourth book in 2023, How We Do it: Black Writers on Craft, Practice and Skill, an anthology of 31 essays and interviews from African American authors.

Awards

 * 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
 * 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship
 * 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
 * 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry
 * 2009 American Book Award
 * 2009 Whiting Award
 * 2009–2010 fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University