On Success and Staying Humble: A Conversation with Jericho Brown

As I sit down to edit this interview, I’m three weeks out from graduating from my MFA program. By the time it is published, the program will be a small blip in my rearview mirror. Spending the final moments of my graduate program reflecting on my conversation with Jericho Brown feels like the perfect way to close out a monumental moment in my life. Mostly because the start of my MFA experience began with Brown as well. Even before the program started, some members of my cohort and I decided to virtually meet up for a book club. The book we chose to read and discuss was Brown’s The Tradition. This was before he had won the Pulitzer Prize for this collection, but sitting with his poems, I found myself lost (in the best of ways) in the power of Brown’s ability to use beautiful and memorable language to explore complex issues with sensitivity and nuance. I revisited this collection many times throughout my time in the program, finding inspiration in his unforgettable imagery and the way he makes the personal feel so universal. 

Having Brown as bookends for my time in an MFA program, I am able to see how much can really change in three years. In crafting the questions for my conversation with Brown, my mind kept wondering what has changed for Brown since winning the Pulitzer Prize. As one of the top prizes in the poetry world, I’m so curious about what changes come from someone winning such a prestigious award, both the good and the bad, and how that affects their everyday life. Here is what Jericho Brown had to share on these questions:

Aaron Tyler Hand: I’m interested in this idea of being a celebrity within this poetry community that we both love. Can you tell me about the things that changed for you after winning the Pulitzer? You wrote this amazing book that me and so many other people were praising before you won the prize, but for you, were there like journals that wouldn’t give you the time of day that started reaching out. I’m curious how things shifted, how people saw you differently, even though you’re like the same Jericho who wrote the same book before and after the Pulitzer Prize.

Jericho Brown: I think a lot of people didn’t know of my work or maybe hadn’t heard my name or didn’t feel compelled to read my work. I think something about winning the Pulitzer makes people feel compelled to read whatever has won, and I think yes, there were people who weren’t into what they imagined I was offering. And so they had to become suddenly interested in seeing whether or not what I was offering was also what they imagined. But I also feel that way just in general about being a Black writer and people’s expectations of what they think black writing is or can be.  

Also, there are opportunities that have come to me that would not have come my way—writing opportunities, and real life money-making opportunities that have come to me. That would not have come my way if I had not won the Pulitzer. I think it makes me busier or at least it gives me more to choose from. I would not give it up for anything that I can think of. I think it’s as much as you choose to do, and I don’t think your life has to change that much. Yeah, but mine did and I don’t mind that. I have this idea that various platforms give us an opportunity to do work that we might not otherwise get to do. And having a Pulitzer Prize definitely gave me that opportunity, so I’m really glad I won.

I always wanted a Pulitzer, when I was like ten or nine, or eight, whenever Rita Dove won a Pulitzer. I was like, “I want one of those,” so I was happy I got one.

Hand: That makes total sense. So while new doors have opened, you see that as more people get to see you and your work, which then leads to more people gaining an understanding of what Black writing is or can be.  

Brown: Yeah, I think when you win a Pulitzer Prize it gives you the opportunity to show in actuality who you are and who your people are. I think a lot of writing that we think of as minority writing, whether it be Black or queer, or any other community, that people think of as a minority community that I myself lived, that I myself am a part of, we don’t also associate that with what we think of as mainstream prize-worthy like the Pulitzer Prize. But you know, writing is never mainstream. Because people actually don’t read and never have read a lot. There’s this myth about literacy as if there was this time when everybody was such a great reader and I just don’t think that time ever existed. I think in general people don’t have the tools, aren’t given the tools, don’t know how or are not interested. You know what I mean? But I think there were always poets in every community. There were always writers and storytellers in every community. I think now more writers and storytellers get to interact with other writers and storytellers of communities that we might not expect to intermingle.

Hand: That’s a great place to transition to another topic I’d love to discuss with you: Twitter. I really appreciate and love how you use Twitter. On one hand you use it as a place to show your accolades, like I’m reading at this event, but you also take the time to retweet what seems like every single person that talks to you. I’m so curious how you walk this line between Jericho Brown, a celebrity in the poetry world, and someone who engages with all of their fans on Twitter, which is not something we think a celebrity typically does. Can you speak on your intentions and motivations with Twitter?

Brown: I guess I don’t think of myself as a person with fans. I think there are people who have been reading my work for a long time, and there are people who read a poem or read The Tradition, and then they go back and they read the past books and I appreciate that. And I think when I’m on Twitter, I just treat it the way I think everybody else treats it. You know what I mean? So because I don’t think of myself as a person with fans, I don’t think it’s a big deal to retweet somebody. I’ll add that generally when I retweet people, it’s still that I’m retweeting ideas that I want to talk about so I start a conversation and people answer questions that I have a genuine interest in. 

What I like about Twitter is it gives me the opportunity to throw questions into the world. What I don’t like about Twitter is when people have assumptions about those questions as if I know the answers. I wouldn’t ask questions if I knew the answer. And then I retweet the answers to those questions because I imagine I’ve started a conversation that other people want to see or read or know in full, so it’s easier to read their conversation if everybody can just see the thread. 

The other thing I don’t like about Twitter is just that people sometimes forget that I’m a person and I don’t like that. I don’t like that about the Internet in general, that people forget that the folk that they’re talking to are people, not ideas, not representations of people, not avatars. You know what I mean?

Hand: Totally, I think that’s like one of the larger issues of moving everything online—it’s so easy to forget that someone is a person when it’s just a screen name and an icon that represents them. You lose the humanity of the person on the other end.

Brown: Yeah, I get really frustrated if I say something in a tweet and then somebody responds and then the other people in the tweet start talking to that somebody else as if I’m not there. They’ll even start talking about me in third person. I’m like you’re under my tweet, I’m right here. I started this conversation. I think sometimes, maybe because of things like the Pulitzer, I don’t know, people forget that I’m a person who you could just talk to.

Hand: That’s what I was trying to get at with my initial question. You’re seen in the poetry world as one of the leading figures, as a celebrity, so I was curious how people might treat you differently because of that. And what I appreciate about the way you use Twitter is that you break down some of those walls, you break down this idea of celebrity and what celebrity is because you do so much interaction with everyone on there and you do it in a way that is genuine.

Related to this, I’m curious if you could speak on the separation between poet and person. Not so much on the page, like how we talk about “the speaker” of a poem, but in real life, the poet versus the person. Do you see the separation or do you see them as one?

Brown: I see them as one, but I also understand that’s hard for other people. And I understand that it gets more difficult for me when people begin to think of “poet” as a kind of moral figure. I think my job is to tell the truth and that doesn’t always make people happy, you know? The truth doesn’t always make people comfortable. That’s one point at which things get weird because people want a kind of perfection from a poet, but then as a person, my idea of perfection is going to be different from somebody else’s idea of perfection and I’m not interested in perfection. I’m much more interested in being a person. I’m attracted to fallibility and failure. I’m sort of attracted. I mean, I don’t want to fail but I am attracted to all the failures that lead to success. You know what I mean? And you don’t get that if you’re not a person.

Hand: Yeah, that even comes with writing. At lunch this afternoon, you mentioned how you’re writing quite a bit right now, but you’re not producing poems. You have to recognize that as a poet, that the personhood of real life means that you fail to do things and that is the same for your writing. You’re not sitting down and writing The Tradition, first try, first draft, you’re a person who sits down and—

Brown: —fights!

Hand: Yeah, exactly! You’re putting in the work, you’re fighting to get to that point of what the book became today. There’s a humanity, a real person, behind the writing, and that person struggles. 

Brown: The thing about being a poet that’s weird, as a person, is that people who want to understand you as a person, have a hard time understanding what it is that you’re doing as a poet. And poets want to understand you as a poet, have a hard time understanding what you’re doing as a person. My personal life is eventful in ways that my poet friends and the poetry community often don’t understand or might easily criticize and my poet life is untranslatable. It’s untranslatable.

My friends love me but even now they’re like What are you doing? Where are you? Come home. They don’t put it all together.  Sometimes I don’t want them to either, you know? Part of my attraction to poetry and part of what allows me to do it is the fact that it is separate from my friends and my family. Part of the reason why I can make a confession or an admission in a poem is because I’m pretty well assured that I don’t have to worry about my friends or my family reading the poem because they’re not readers. Which I love. I can say whatever the fuck I want.

Hand: I get that. As someone from a working-class background, not a lot of people in my family read either. They’re supportive of me and read my work, but it’s not in the same way as, say, you reading my work. Having that space allows for some healing for myself, in any minor or major sense of the word. 

You mentioned how you have the separation between the personal and the poet, just in the sense that it allows you to have that little bit of a gap in your life, but in my eyes, you use your Twitter as a way to bridge that gap by showing your accolades and your personal side. Can you talk about the use of being human on Twitter, in a place where people so easily aren’t themselves.

Brown: I don’t know if people aren’t themselves but I get reminded of that every once in a while. My struggle, my life’s goal, the whole thing I’m trying to do every day, the thing I was trying to do 20 years ago when I was a very young person when I made it my goal. And while I’m not there yet,  I would say even in high school I wanted to be who I am. Integrity is being who you are no matter what the situation is, you know what I mean? I wanted integrity so badly. As a closeted person, I understood that for me in particular that it was immoral, it was unethical because I wasn’t being honest with me or with anybody around me. I’ve wanted honesty. 

I will say though, I think that it’s almost impossible to play on social media without also, whether you like it or not, or whether you do it purposely or not, it’s almost impossible to do that without creating a persona. But it’s never been my goal to create a persona. There’s certain things that I think that I might have used to do, there are things I probably would have said years ago on social media that I wouldn’t say now.

Hand: Like putting guards up?

Brown: No, I wouldn’t say guards. I just think I have to be careful. Whether or not I think of myself as a leader, I have to be careful about the fact that other people think of me as a leader. You know what I mean? So, yeah, because other people think of me as a leader they’re gonna go where I point and follow me somewhere, so I have to be careful about that because I don’t want to go somewhere and end up there, thinking I came here by myself and then turn around and 57,000 people are behind me. And be like “What are y’all doing here? Y’all can’t eat all of this chocolate.” Do you know what I’m saying? I could eat all this chocolate by myself, but you’re gonna die if you eat this chocolate, you know what I mean?

So, I do think there’s something weird happening in my life where I’m trying to negotiate that now. And I have to, I don’t want to, but I have to think about my future and protecting my space. The important thing is that I’m protecting my space in my time for writing. You can get into role modeling and leading and all that other bullshit to the point where you’re not actually getting any writing done. If I’m not writing, all these people that claim they love me so much, they not finna love me without something to love. But really, I’m important to me. I’m happier when I’m writing. I’m happiest when I’m writing. Because I’m not writing, I don’t even notice I don’t have a man, but when I’m not writing, or not writing as much, or not writing as well, I’m suddenly lonely. I’m suddenly like, “Why don’t I have a man?” When I’m writing, I’m so glad I don’t have a man. Do you know what I’m saying? 

Hand: Definitely, writing is a relationship of sorts on its own. It takes up your time just like a relationship would. And I appreciate you sharing all this with me, and I don’t want to be that man taking more of your time away from writing, so thank you for sitting down with me! 

Brown: Anytime!