ONE WOULD EXPECT a poetry collection titled The Tradition to demonstrate familiarity and deftness with a variety of closed and/or regular forms, and Brown certainly checks that box; you would likewise expect it to allude cannily to canonical poems, and Brown does that as well, as when his "Of the Swan" glances back at Yeats's "Leda and the Swan."
It does not surprise that the collection's title poem turns out to be a sonnet.
It does surprise that the "tradition" invoked is that of American police killing black men.
And there you have the particular power of the book. A collection that is "woke," shall we say, reflecting on questions of race, sexuality, and justice, is not such an unusual thing these days. Likewise, a collection with some neo-formalist tightrope-walking is not such an unusual thing. That Brown can do either, switching from one to the other and even doing both at once, makes this one of those prize-winning books (a Pulitzer in the case) whose prizes feel deserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment