Poetry, Vulnerability and Finding Your Voice with Jericho Brown

Is it time to take the leap? Anyone you've admired, looked up to or emulated has, at some point, taken a necessary risk to move towards the living and life of their choice. Today, Pulitzer prize-winning poet Jericho Brown shares how he did just that, and the key to speaking truth through art.

Jericho's advice for anyone beginning their journey struck me as profound, yet simple. What would a day look like if you were living your dream career/life/business? What you begin to realize is that there are things that you can do today, cost-free, to move towards that reality. "If you want to be a writer, then write for 5 minutes. Once you find 5 minutes, you can find 10, and 30, and once you are writing for 30 minutes a day you on your way," Jericho says.

Jericho worked as a speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before earning his PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston.

The New York Times Book Review notes his most recent collection The Tradition: “In Brown’s poems, the body at risk — the infected body, the abused body, the black body, the body in eros — is most vulnerable to the cruelty of the world. But even in their most searing moments, these poems are resilient out of necessity, faithful to their account of survival, when survival is the hardest task of all: “So the Bible says, in the beginning, / Blackness. I am alive.”

In this episode we talk about:

• Why it's necessary to take risk with your words

• Translating experiences into poetry

• What happens when you have nothing to lose

• What makes poetry so powerful and why its resurgence is no coincidence

Enjoy!

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