9 min listen
Jericho Brown — Poems as Teachers | Ep 5
FromPoetry Unbound
ratings:
Length:
13 minutes
Released:
May 16, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In “Hebrews 13” by Jericho Brown, a narrator says: “my lover and my brother both knocked at my door.” The heat is turned on, scalding coffee is offered and hastily swallowed, and silence is the soundtrack. What an exquisitely awkward triangle it is, and what a human, beautiful, and loving shape that can be.Jericho Brown is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where he also directs the university’s creative writing program. His books of poetry are The New Testament, Please, and The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This is the fifth episode of "Poems as Teachers," a special seven-part miniseries on conflict and the human condition.We’re pleased to offer Jericho Brown’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.
Released:
May 16, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Ross Gay — Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt: Ross Gay’s poem “Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt” uses an everyday task to examine what is made and unmade in small moments. He imagines his fingers opening and closing things, like buttons, the eyes of a dead person, relationships. In doing so, the poem asks us to simply pay attention, today, to what we’re doing with our hands — to understand them as intimate pathways into the stories of our bodies and the stories of our lives. A question to reflect on after you listen: What have you done with your hands today? What are you opening? What are you closing? by Poetry Unbound