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Michael Brown

Feature date(s): 03/22/2004

Along with Finnish performance poet Erkki Lappalainen, President of the International Organization of Performance Poets, Michael Brown, the organization's General Secretary, produced the first Poetry Olympics held October 1998 in Stockholm, Europe's Cultural Capital. Poets from twelve countries competed in four separate categories. Plans are underway for a larger Olympics during the next several years in another European country.

Michael Brown's first book of poetry, Falling Wallendas (Chicago: Tia Chucha, 1994) resulted from a performance piece presented around the USA for the previous three years. The point of view is that of someone who has lived a full life and finds it too easy to look back in comfortable memory and not too difficult to look ahead. Much of the political attitude stems from a quote from an old organizer, "The most radical thing you can have in America is a long memory." In 1995 Brown's new performance piece, Prof. Perfpo lectures on performing poetry, premiered at Passim's in Cambridge. Susquehanna, his new book-length poetry manuscript, presents persona poems from small town life. He is currently working on two more poetry books, one of which is The Martin Bormann Dog Care Book containing political poems.

Michael Brown's first published poem appeared in the premiere issue of Beyond Baroque in 1968. Over the past 30 years his poems have been in (among others) Amandla Ngewethu!, Another Chicago Magazine, Blue Cloud, Defined Providence, Galley Sail, Greenfield Review, Kudzu, Oyez, On the Bus, Pembroke, Red Brick Review, West Coast Poetry Review, and in Since Feeling Is First (Scott, Foresman, 1972), The Vagaries of Invention (Sidewinder, 1982) and Stray Bullets: Chicago Saloon Poets 1991 (Tia Chucha, 1992). He has also had travel articles in The Chicago Tribune, "Homage to Robert Hayden" in Commentary (1980), fiction in Wormwood, feature articles in The Chicago Reader, and occasional columns in The Korea Times.

An itinerant professor, Brown has been teaching for 39 years, including five years of high school and stints at Michigan, East Texas State, Central (Ohio) State, Western Michigan, Illinois-Chicago, the Uptown Chicago Center of Elmhurst and North Park, Roosevelt, Rhode Island, Suffolk, and his best-loved of all, Chicago State. Currently Professor of Communications at Mount Ida College, he teaches writing, Intercultural Communications, and English as a Second Language.

Brown holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from the University of Michigan. His dissertation, directed by Robert Hayden, was a literary history of the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1986 and 1987 Brown taught at Suwon University in South Korea and traveled extensively in Asia. In 1988 he lectured on English as a second language at the National Normal University in Taipeh. In 1991 he lectured at the University of Stockholm on African American literature and performed his poetry at Kaffe 44. In 1998 he lectured on performance poetry at Hamburg University and performed in London, England; Halmstad, Umea and Stockholm, Sweden; Dusseldorf and Hamburg, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Jerusalem.

Brown began doing slam and performance poetry when he returned from Korea. After honing his skills in the bars of Chicago, including the infamous Weeds, he and his wife brought competitive poetry to the Northeast. They co-hosted the Boston slam, and they were members of the 1993 National Championship team from Boston. Brown organized the 1992 International Poetry Slam Championships. He founded Slam! the International Performance Poetry Newsletter, official publication of the Poetry Olympics and the US national slam, and he is creator of for international poetry news. He has several times performed his poem "Chorus" as part of Beat Cafe, an original ballet choreographed by former Joffrey dancer Anthony Williams. He recently completed a play , The Duchess of York. He appeared in the documentary film SlamNation. He continues to write, teach, perform, plan, and dream.