DERRICK BROWN

Derrick C. Brown first discovered poetry in a foxhole when he was enlisted as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne. His 2013 collection, Strange Light is the winner of the 2013 Texas Book of The Year Award. Strange Light was commissioned by The Netherlands for the Noord Nederlandse Dans Collective to perform with 14 dancers, an orchestra and Brown reciting live.

He began touring nationally with his poetry after his honorable discharge in 1993 and has performed at over two thousand venues and universities, including national and international literary festivals such as the Berlin International Literature Festival, Glastonbury and AWP. He has toured with poets Anis Mojgani and Buddy Wakefield in the spoken word sensation known as the Poetry Revival, and with poet and actress Amber Tamblyn in a recurring show called The Lazers of Sexcellance. Brown’s poem, A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me, was made into a short film and screened at over 40 international film festivals, winning 28 awards. He is popular for blending other art forms with poetry.

Brown toured Europe as a poet opening for the band Cold War Kids, chronicled in the documentary poetry concert film You Belong Everywhere. He has collaborated and toured with comedian Eugene Mirman, David Cross, Kurt Braunohler, All Tomorrow’s Parties with The Flaming Lips, Delta Spirit, Richard Swift of The Shins and The Black Keys (Poetry and music) and with painter Blaine Fontana.

Brown is known for being an innovator in curating unique and creative poetry adventures like the Double Decker Poetry Bus Party and poetry shows at sea for Poetry Cruise. Brown performed his poetry on The Tonight show with Jay Leno, as well as for the Best American Contemporary Poetry Concert series, The Drums Inside Your Chest. He has curated literature festivals such as the Word x Word festival in Massachusetts.

Brown is a former weatherman and gondolier. He is currently the founder of Write Bloody Publishing, an independent book publisher on the outskirts of Austin, TX, in Elgin, whose main principle is that all authors must tour and write. They must craft poems that work as well on the page as they perform onstage. Write Bloody’s concept is that poets should tour and promote themselves like rock bands, and that the publisher should be the source of energy for the revitalization of live poetry in America.