The poet Jericho Brown reminds us to bear witness to the complexity of the human experience, to interrogate the proximity of violence to love, and to look and listen closer so that we might uncover the small truths and surprises in life. His presence is irreverent and magnetic, as the high school students who joined us for this conversation experienced firsthand at the 2018 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. And now he’s won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Editor’s note: This interview discusses sexual violence and rape.

Jericho Brown is Winship Distinguished Research Professor in 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 2020 Pulitzer Prize.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jericho Brown — Small Truths and Other Surprises." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.