Every year since 1987, the Sewanee Review has honored a distinguished poet in the maturity of their career with the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry. This year we are recognizing Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown. Brown is the author of many collections of poetry including “The New Testament,” “Please,” and “The Tradition,” which won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

The celebration will take place on Nov. 11 and Nov, 12, 2024. University Vice-Chancellor Rob Pearigen and Sewanee Review editor Adam Ross will present Brown with the award at 4:30 p.m., Nov. 11, in Convocation Hall, after which Brown will read from his body of work.

On Nov. 12, at 4:30 pm, Meta DuEwa Jones will lecture on Brown’s poetry in the McGriff Alumni House. Jones is a critic, scholar, and professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of “The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to the Spoken Word” (University of Illinois, 2011), awarded an honorable mention for the MLA William Sanders Scarborough Prize.