Michael R. Brown

Michael R. Brown has published his poetry, fiction, travel articles and columns in wide-ranging periodicals all over the world. His fourth book of poetry, The Confidence Man, was published by Ragged Sky in 2006. In May, 2007, Brown and his partner Valerie Lawson moved to Robbinston in Down East Maine, the easternmost point in the USA, where they have been granted the editorial and publishing privileges for Off the Coast, a poetry journal founded by Arlene and George V. Van Deventer 14 years ago. Brown has returned to teaching, now at Shead High School in Eastport. As a correspondent for the local paper, The Quoddy Tides, his beat is the Passamaquoddy reservation at Pleasant Point. He has also returned to the theater, acting in the Stage East production of It's a Wonderful Life and directing the Magnificent Liars Company in Mafia on Prozac.

Brown holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from the University of Michigan. His dissertation was a literary history of the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance directed by Robert Hayden. For 45 years he taught in high schools and universities from the South Side of Chicago to South Korea. In 1999, he won the first Ronald J. Lettieri Award for Teaching Excellence at Mount Ida College.

Brown was a finalist in the 1991 individual competition of the US National Poetry Slam. In 1991 he held the first poetry slam in Stockholm, Sweden, and lectured on African American Literature at Stockholm University. In 1992 he organized the US national slam, and he was on the Boston slam teams that won the US Championship in 1993 and finished third in 1995. In 1998 he won the 6th International Slam in Amsterdam. Brown won the open slam at the 2000 Provincetown Poetry Festival, and he was the hit of the 2001 Rockland (NY) Jazz and Blues Festival. He has performed his poems from Jerusalem to Taipeh and Vancouver to Key West. For 13 years he hosted the Boston slam at the Cantab Lounge, Cambridge.

Michael Brown was co-producer of The Culture of Peace, an international exhibit of art and poetry organized under the UN mandate for a decade of the Culture of Peace. This project has created an art and poetry exhibit and resulted in four exchanges of poets between Ireland and Massachusetts. He is general secretary of the Poetry Olympics, first held in Stockholm in 1998.

Brown's first published poem appeared in the first issue of Beyond Baroque (1969). Recently published poems have appeared in Sensations, 100 Poets Against the War, and Spoken Word Revolution Redux. Forthcoming will be poems in the Sacred Fools anthology Legendary and a biker anthology to be published by Archer Books in San Francisco.

Brown conducts workshops in writing and performance. He has several times performed his poem "Chorus" as part of Beat Cafe, an original ballet choreographed by former Joffrey dancer Anthony Williams. He appeared in the documentary film SlamNation. In the past five years he produced and directed shows by the Off-Broadway Poets and Dr. Brown’s Traveling Poetry Show, an ensemble who perform their own poetry in theaters. His full-length play, The Duchess of York,was a finalist in the Cape Cod Playwrights’ Competition.