Wayne Brown’s Followers (1)

Wayne Brown

Born

in Trinidad and Tobago

July 18, 1944

Died

September 15, 2009

Genre

Poetry

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Wayne Vincent Brown was born on 18 July 1944 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. After attending school at St Mary's College, Port of Spain, he read English at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica from 1965 to 1968, and also attended the University of Toronto. He won the Jamaican Independence Festival Poetry Prize in 1968, and in 1973 won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for his first collection, On the Coast (1972).

Brown's candidature for the Gregory Fellowship appears to have been prompted by the success of On the Coast. Following the award of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize he was brought to the attention of Arthur Ravenscroft, editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, by Kenneth Ramchand; at Ravenscroft's instigation, he was approached Wayne Vincent Brown was born on 18 July 1944 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. After attending school at St Mary's College, Port of Spain, he read English at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica from 1965 to 1968, and also attended the University of Toronto. He won the Jamaican Independence Festival Poetry Prize in 1968, and in 1973 won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for his first collection, On the Coast (1972).

Brown's candidature for the Gregory Fellowship appears to have been prompted by the success of On the Coast. Following the award of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize he was brought to the attention of Arthur Ravenscroft, editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, by Kenneth Ramchand; at Ravenscroft's instigation, he was approached and offered the Fellowship by Professor A. Norman Jeffares. (1) Brown was the first and only non-British writer to be appointed to the Fellowship, taking up the post in October 1974. Two years previously, William Walsh, a lecturer in the School of English at Leeds since 1957, had become the first Professor of Commonwealth Literature in the United Kingdom. Brown's own appointment might, therefore, be considered within the context of the development of the study of Commonwealth and Postcolonial literatures as an academic subject at Leeds.

Despite having found the University campus somewhat cold and impersonal, Brown appreciated the time to write that the Gregory Fellowship gave him. He later reflected on his time in Leeds as "A womby interlude. For which I remain very grateful." (2) He enjoyed meeting the students, finding them "unpretentious but high-spirited and hard-working" (3); held a weekly student poetry workshop; and contributed both poems and editorial advice to the literary journal Poetry and Audience. Volume 21:6 of the magazine, published in 1975, was issued as a Selected Poems, edited by Brown.
Also in 1975, Brown compiled and co-edited the 21 Years of Poetry and Audience anthology with Tom Wharton. Brown states that he felt "gratified at how readily the poets, some quite famous, agreed to their poems being reprinted, gratis." (4) This perhaps gives some indication of the esteem in which this small student publication was held. In addition to poems by former Gregory Fellows and other "Leeds Poets" such as Geoffrey Hill, Vernon Scannell and Robin Skelton, the anthology included contributions from poets including Philip Larkin, C.H. Sisson, Stevie Smith, Donald Davie and Ted Hughes. The cover for the anthology was designed by Brown's wife, Megan.

In 1977, Brown returned to the Caribbean, initially to Port of Spain, Trinidad, where he took up a teaching position at Fatima College, and was appointed information officer to the American Embassy. He edited a selected edition of the poetry of his mentor, Derek Walcott, in 1981. Brown went on to hold various fellowships in the United States connected with creative writing, and has also been involved in the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa. He has lectured in English at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica; and is currently a tutor in Creative Writing on the Master program at Lesley University, Boston.

Wayne Brown has continued to write both poetry and prose, publishing a further collection of his poems, Voyages (1989), and two collections of short stories and remembrances, Child of the Sea (1990) and Landscape with Heron (2000). Since 1984 he has written the social commentary column 'In Our Time' for the Trinidad Express; he currently edits the literary pages of the Sunday Gleaner. He has recently started researching and writing the second part of his biography of Edna Manley, and is also editor of the online literary magazine Caribbean Writing Today.

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Average rating: 3.83 · 333 ratings · 30 reviews · 71 distinct works • Similar authors

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	Among Us: Impostor has Lightning Powers vs Black Hole (Among Us Comic Daily Book 2) 4.32 avg rating — 28 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Among Us: Impostor is a Wizard and has Laser Eyes (Among Us Comic Daily Book 1) 3.96 avg rating — 23 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Five-Minute MBA 3.71 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Among Us: Impostor with Xray and Nocromendor (Unofficial) (Among Us Impostor and Crewmates Book 3) 4.78 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Among Us: Impostor is Vampire and a Rock Star (Among Us Comic Daily Book 4) 3.78 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Among Us: Impostor Ice and Fire (Among Us Comic Daily Book 5) 3.78 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Five Minute MBA 3.11 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2007	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	On the Coast and Other Poems 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1972	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by Wayne Brown (?)

“So strange, that sense of a house no longer straddling past and present, but where past and present, withdrawn in their separate assumptions , stood apart and loathed each other, while all around them, in the untended yard outside, their common future, the bush, gained ground.”
― Wayne Brown, The Scent of the Past: Stories and Remembrances

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“That was March ’91, and I haven’t seen them since. I don’t know what happened to Lillian, and knowing something of big cities and winter, and of the wolfish hearts of men therein – and recalling those cheekbones and the glossy dark skin, the good body, and the pulled-back hair – I don’t really want to know.”
― Wayne Brown, The Scent of the Past: Stories and Remembrances

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“Then though , I look around me at the airport hustle, with its irritable cab honkings and clank of baggage carts, the spit and hiss of bus brakes, the lamplit shades hurrying to and fro in a New York night that is black, raining, and cold, with, ahead of us, the inconceivable press and milling of unseen souls, New York, city of dreams, or so it still sells itself, though for most who walk its canyoned street it is where the dream died, leaving them in graffitied apartments with bad heating and dark stairwells, riding the treadmill of two part-time jobs, or even three, the unending, mean struggle for survival…”
― Wayne Brown, The Scent of the Past: Stories and Remembrances

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Caribbean Authors: Puerto Rico - Trinidad & Tobago	3	193	Nov 06, 2009 03:59AM

Wayne Brown’s Followers (1)

Wayne Brown

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Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Wayne Brown’s books