Love Poetry

American poetry?
I have to write a poem what it’s like to be american but I have no idea where to start. I love writing poetry but not like this. HELP.
- SweetCocoaAngel

American poetry?
I have to write a poem what it’s like to be american but I have no idea where to start. I love writing poetry but not like this. HELP.
- SweetCocoaAngel

Poetry may be taken to the level of mainstream again with the emergence of the internet.  It hasn’t been this popular since the advent of radio.  Countless websites are popping up every day dedicated to the writing and appreciation of poetry.  One writer in particular is getting the attention of the academic as well as commercial world.  Jerry Browning is one of the most talented wordsmiths of our time and has been writing poems and lyrics for over thirty years. His newly release book of poetry, Emotionography, may be the finest volume of American poetry since Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”.  Jerry paints pictures of loneliness, destiny, heart ache, passion, and glory that are unmatched. He takes life head on and is fearless when it comes to weighing in on political (”The Window”) and religious issues (”After the Rapture”).

If we were to describe Jerry’s talent as a poet and lyricist using baseball terminology, he would be classified a five tool player. He can speak of love like Elizabeth Barrett Browning (”Becoming a Browning”), write beauty like Robert Frost (”Savannah”), tell a story like Samuel Taylor Coleridge (”Sandscript”), terror like Edgar Allan Poe (”The B, B, and G”), and simple truth like Dylan Thomas (”Tools”). Jerry has always noted the year and where he happens to be at the time he writes. Leading into the compilation with his rough, early work takes courage. It is amazing and enlightening to watch how his style develops over time. The title is brilliant because it is truly a biography not of documented events, but of an emotional sojourn.

Jerry’s life story is more along the liking of an adventurer than a poet. He has led a full, interesting life and captured it in verse. His escapades include hitch hiking cross country, rock climbing, the “Urban Cowboy” type Texas barroom scene (Book 1), life in the armed services (Book 2 - United States Navy where he served onboard the USS Yorktown), and finally settling down to raise a family (Book 3). His style is his own and the way he uses the modern world in his descriptions will brand him as a man of his time. Yet, that being said, the way he writes about his era is timeless. Jerry’s poetry should definitely be considered modernist.

His passion for mechanics, electronics, and science come through in his writing as evident in “Stark Reality” and “Hoedown at the Robot Farm”. His humor is dry and sometimes bawdy but usually makes a point (”Bigot”). His love poetry and lyrics are full of feeling, passion, and at times extremely erotic (”Route 69″). Some of the songs he’s written could easily be popular on the music charts (see “Sleepytown” and “Lyin’ in the Dark”).

His influences include Harlan Howard, Jim Croce, Bob Dylan, and Jim Morrison. Although he has a famous last name in the poetry world, he thinks if he were to be compared to a classic poet, it would probably be Robert Burns. Jerry’s given name is Gerald Dwain Browning. He was born in Man, West Virginia on November 29th, 1958 and now resides just outside of Des Moines, Iowa.

Anyone interested in poetry for whatever reason should visit Emotionography.net and bookmark it!

Solomon Weiss, PhD

Editior-in-chief

Columbian Review of American Poetry


- Jerry Browning

The spoken word becomes rhythmic as soon as men are stirred, become truly themselves, authentic. Yes, poetry comes from speech.”

Leopold Sedar Senghor

Leopold Sedar Senghor, one of the greatest of all African writers, knows that poetry is based on the spoken word; all great poetry is “spoken word poetry,” or it is not poetry at all.

“In Africa, when an old man dies, it is like a library burning.” Amadou Hampate Ba was Mali’s ambassador to the United Nations when he said that, and I can find no better example of what Leopold Sedar Senghor meant when he said that poetry comes from speech.

Amadou was stirred-and he was “truly himself”-when he spoke those words at UNESCO in 1962, and as soon as the words were spoken they were poetry.

Shakespeare wrote many of the most beautiful words ever uttered in the English language. His sonnets are truly spoken word poetry, because his words are poems, and they were meant to be spoken.

His sonnets are love poems, and a love that is not spoken out loud is a love that will never come alive. You can get the unabridged collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets and other wonderful collections of the world’s most beloved poetry at Talking-Book-Store.com.

The sonnets are read by Sir John Gielgud, possibly the greatest interpreter of Shakespeare the world has ever known.

You can enjoy listening to many of the greatest American poets in the full-cast production of Classic American Poetry, also available at Talking-Book-Store.com.

This superb anthology of America’s most famous spoken word poetry includes 65 poems by the leading American poets, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and E.E. Cummings.

The King James Bible contains some of the world’s most beautiful spoken word poetry. “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” Jesus said. He was quoting Moses, who was one of the first poets of the spoken word.

The Bible is full of poetry: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The first verse of the Gospel of John speaks of the power of the spoken word to create, and it is for me the most rhythmic, stirring, and truly authentic speech ever recorded by man.

Yes, Leopold Sedar Senghor was right: Poetry comes from speech.

Some of my favorite spoken word poetry is in the New Testament: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known,” wrote Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth.

Dr. Martin Luther King alluded to this verse when he said, “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”

The world’s greatest spoken word poetry lifts up the veil and shows us “that which we do not see.” Be sure to visit Talking-Book-Store.com for a wide selection of the world’s most beautiful spiritual and inspirational poetry.


- Janet Rusky