The News
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Emmy-award winning journalist Jeffrey Brown explores the intersections between politics and poetry in his debut book The News. From a high-security prison in Arizona to a West Point classroom to a slum in Haiti, Brown's poems share the perspectives of inmates, cadets, and survivors. Brown's voice is introspective and compassionate as he addresses both the "news from home" and natural disasters that cause large-scale suffering. In Brown's own words, poetry is an "accounting of what it means to be alive in this world," and his work unites the "often disconnected worlds of news and poetry."
Headlines 1
"Bomb Explodes in a Crowded Market"
Winds blow, my friends are scattered
"Dow Falls on Jobs Numbers"
I add and add and it doesn't add up
"President to Address the Nation"
I seek a way out, a way in – away
"White Smoke: Habemus Papam"
I turned for a moment – where did she go?
"U.S. Demands End to Cyber Attacks"
I've forgotten every book I've read
"Detroit: Crisis Born of Bad Decisions"
This is the life I choose now
Jeffrey Brown is the chief correspondent for arts, culture, and society at PBS NewsHour. His work has taken him all over the world as he searches for the connections between news and poetry. He is the creator and host of "Art Beat," which is NewsHour's online arts and culture blog. As a producer and correspondent, his work has earned him an Emmy the Cine Golden Eagle. He lives in Washington, DC.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brown, a correspondent on PBS NewsHour, records the sentiments of a life spent in TV news in his debut collection. Sardonic, excited, appalled, or simply exhausted, the spare, honest poems at first tell "the story we know to be true." Brown reported from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Beirut during civil war in Lebanon ("Hezbollah by day, Dunkin' Donuts at night"), and Wisconsin during "Campaign 2012" (as one poem is titled), where "there are twenty-three voters/ yet to make up their minds." When the headlines recede, Brown's poetry turns to the old age and death of his father, in a series marked by a moving restraint: "One morning state police/ escort us to your grave/ the next my flight is canceled.// Maintenance issues breaking/ out all over." Brown's winning afterword sets the "greedy monster" of his day job beside the avocation of verse not the same as reportage, but not quite separate from it either. His clear poems blend familiar self-accusation with forthright defenses of his trade: such writing will hold the interest of readers who want to know more about broadcast journalism and the thoughts of a broadcast journalist one who has done much to put present-day verse prominently on the small screen.
