So, I’m from a very particular tradition, and in that tradition if I say something that rings true, you might say something like, “Mmm,” and if you really like it, you might even say, “Amen.” And I know everybody in this room is not from that tradition, but I know there are enough of you in this room from that tradition that the people who are not will catch on.
Thank you so much for having me. It’s so good to be in Kansas City. I love Kansas City. One of the best times I’ve had in my literary life was working with the Midwest Poets Series and Bob Stewart as well as a radio interview I did with Angela Elam for that giant of a lit magazine, New Letters. I love the people of Kansas City. Is Senator Razer still here? Did he leave? Oh, thank you, Lord. I love the people of Kansas City. Senator Razer wouldn’t like this, but I do hope your football team with that unnecessary team name loses the Super Bowl. But don’t get mad at me about that. Don’t get mad at me about that, because I also hope the San Francisco 49ers who caused all that trouble for Colin Kaepernick just because he exhibited Black dignity and had the nerve to kneel during the national anthem, yes, I hope the 49ers lose the Super Bowl too!
I should say to Elise—Elise is a poet, so y’all know I got to recognize the poet that graced the stage. Thank you so much for that reading and thank you so much for that land acknowledgment. It is so important. You know, when I first started attending events and I would hear land acknowledgments, I would sort of roll my eyes because in order to get to the event, I would have passed so much land that could have been given back. And so what I want to say to you is thank you. I know that in 1824, two hundred years ago, no one imagined that we would be doing land acknowledgments, and I also know that there are nations all over this world that do not imagine that they will be doing land acknowledgments. And I pray God, in the name of Jesus, that they do not end up with reason to do more land acknowledgment than they already have to do.
It is a particular pleasure to be with the good people who staff, organize, and facilitate all things AWP. Again, they’ve done their best to put such a lovely conference together for us. I think we should give them a hand.
No matter what happens, no matter what gets said, AWP is still the place where a very young Jericho Brown first began saying out of his mouth that he is a poet. People do ask, “What is it that you write?” And because I was answering that question here in my early twenties, I was also in a position where I had to understand I was not the only poet. I am not the only writer. And once you know you’re a part of a “we,” you oughta wonder “Who we are?”
AWP is also where I successfully learned to haggle over books on Saturday at the bookfair. I figured out pretty quickly that publishers appreciate less of a load to pack and to take back home. And I am right now apologizing to every publisher I ever terrorized with this knowledge. People think it’s the Pulitzer, but I believe one of my greatest achievements on earth is going back and forth with Ed Ochester, the former editor of the Pitt Poetry Series, who—after telling me that I was killing him—finally relented to selling me four Reginald Shepherd poetry books for only twenty bucks. Then I had the nerve to be confused as to why Pitt kept rejecting my book manuscripts. I’m so sorry, Ed. I was a graduate student then. I was broke, and all I had to leverage at that point in my life was a very slick mouth. I hope Ed Ochester will be willing to forgive me, especially since this April, Pitt will be publishing the volume of selected poems I edited by the late Reginald Shepherd. Thank you, Ed Ochester, for seeing me and seeing the future in me. Since y’all clapping, you are welcome to preorder your copy of The Selected Shepherd right now on whatever app is easiest for you to get to. You are welcome to make that purchase while I am talking. I promise not to say anything too heavy while you’re buying that book.
Before I get all the way started, I must say I appreciate that introduction from my friend January O’Neil. She and I have loved one another for a long time, long enough to have friends in common who are no longer here physically. With that in mind, I want to dedicate this keynote to the love, life, and poetry that manifested themselves to us as Phebus Etienne and Kamilah Aisha Moon.
I’m glad January told you I was a poet. It’s really nice to have someone else introduce me that way. When I have to say it myself, when I meet new people and they ask me what I do, I answer, “I’m a poet,” and they look at me very strangely. On a few occasions, people ask me what I do, and I tell them I’m a poet and they will look me directly in my face and say, “No, seriously, what do you do?” or “Oh Jericho, stop playing. What do you do?” or “Oh, that’s nice! A poet! But what do you do for a living?” When I repeat that I am a poet, they look at me with the saddest faces as if they feel sorry for me. People go as far as telling me other things I can do. Some of those people have been my parents. One woman on a plane once told me, “It’s never too late for your big break.”
I love telling people who want to talk to me on planes that I’m a poet because it usually keeps them from trying to talk to me. I’d rather take a nap than explain what makes my heart beat. Often on planes when I’m asked what I do, I’ll say I’m a poet and my neighboring passenger will huff a bit and respond, “I hate poetry.” Over the years, I’ve learned to ask back, “You don’t have any poem that you love?” And without hesitation, the same person who just told me they hate poetry recites from memory the entirety of a poem by Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost or Langston Hughes or e. e. cummings. Once in rough air, a sixty-three-year-old Black woman from Tennessee gave me the first stanza of Eliot’s “Waste Land.” On another occasion, a thirty-four-year-old white man from New Mexico recited all of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” as we braced for takeoff. It happened.