The New Testament

Brown's is a necessary art in an era that has seen lingering racial conflict and growing acceptance of gays in America, as well as extreme intolerance and homophobia in many countries overseas. These poems work because while they emanate from an intimately personal place, social concerns loom as large as the barber in Bonnat s painting. To merge the private with the public so seamlessly is an enviable feat. * The Antioch Review * Erotic and grief-stricken, ministerial and playful, Brown offers his reader a journey unlike any other in contemporary poetry. * Rain Taxi * In his second collection, The New Testament,Brown treats disease and love and lust between men, with a gentle touch, returning again and again to the stories of the Bible, which confirm or dispute his vision of real life. 'Every last word is contagious, ' he writes, awake to all the implications of that phrase. There is plenty of guiltsurvivor s guilt, sinner s guiltand ever-present death, but also the joy of survival and sin. And not everyone has the chutzpah to rewrite The Good Book. * NPR * To read Jericho Brown's poems is to encounter devastating genius. -- Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen and Macarthur Genius Award winner