The Tradition
"This is a truly wonderful book. These emotions and history Jericho shares are much needed in these times. A truly talented young poet".
A National Book Award finalist and winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, The Tradition—Jericho Brown's third book of poems—is "tender, vulnerable, severe, riveting" (Los Angeles Review of Books).
Exploring personal, family, and national history, these poems ask us to examine the traditions and narratives we inherit, and how they shape the present moment: what we preserve, what we celebrate, what we're complicit with, what we challenge, and how we live and care for one another.
Written at intersections of Black queerness, Brown's work finds love, understanding, hope, and abundant beauty despite the evil that pollutes the everyday. "The Tradition pays off on the first page and just keeps on giving...writing is good words in good order; poetry is the best words in the best order. Brown's words are in the best order possible" (Vox).
Companion Books
The Poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo
"A story that will slam the power of poetry and love back into your heart"
The Poet X is a National Book Award-winning novel-in-verse about an unstoppable young Afro-Latina poet who tells her story with blazing words and powerful truth. Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking, secretly pouring her frustration onto the pages of a leather notebook like prayers. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, Xiomara doesn't know how she could ever attend without her religious mami finding out. But even so, in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Hey Black Child
by Useni Eugene Perkins
Hey black child
Do you know who you are?
Who you really are?
Do you know you can be
What you want to be
If you try to be
What you can be
A lyrical, empowering poem by renowned poet and activist Useni Eugene Perkins, Hey Black Child joyfully celebrates Black children and seeks to inspire all young ones to dream big and achieve their goals. Illustrated by six-time Coretta Scott King Award-winner Bryan Collier.
Limited free copies of all three books are available as giveaways for book discussion participants. If you would like to purchase your own copy of The Tradition, The Poet X, or Hey Black Child, please support one of Philadelphia's amazing Black-owned bookstores:
