Book cover for The New Testament

The New Testament

Synopsis

Details

26 July 2018
88 pages
9781509885596
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

Dazzling verse on masculinity and race, steeped in the language of the Bible and addressing sexuality and violence, this is a striking and inspiring collection . . . His poems reveal an unwavering belief in the power of language to redeem us from the wreckage of history and contemporary conflict, one that is contagious and might even give us all a reason for hope.
To read Jericho Brown's poems is to encounter devastating genius.
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.
Erotic and grief-stricken, ministerial and playful, Brown offers his reader a journey unlike any other in contemporary poetry.