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Derrick Brown, CAS ’04
Derrick Brown is poet in residence at D.C .’s Busboys and Poets bookstore.
On a rainy October morning, 19 AU writing students sit transfixed by the reading of “The Nod Factor,” a searing poem about the invisibility of black men. Standing center stage and loving it, Derrick Brown is back.
Poet in residence at Washington, D.C.’s, Busboys and Poets bookstore, Brown recently returned to visit the school that had been a springboard to his career as a poet. But long before graduate school and a secure job in journalism, this North Carolinian had built his life around a passion for the written word.
“I was an only child and spent weekends at the library,” says Brown, now 31. “I’d go into the room with the record player for a good two, three hours—the smell of the books, the big blue headphones—listening to my stories.”
In 1998 with a journalism degree from Hampton University, Brown worked as a newspaper reporter in Charlotte. Three years later he joined AU’s MFA program, studying with Professors Cornelius Eady and Myra Sklarew. Following a Cave Canem fellowship in 2003, Brown’s work soon appeared in the Drum Voices Review, Times-Picayune, Black Issues Book Reviews, Black Arts Quarterly, Hurricane Katrina Haiku Anthology, and Cave Canem poetry anthologies.
Brown performed at the Capitol City Jazz Fest’s Poetry Slam in 2005 and has since read his work in museums, churches, and studios from Georgetown to Harlem. Many Washington night owls know the sound of his voice. On Fridays, midnight to 3 a.m., he cohosts “Soul Conversations” on WPFW FM 89.3.
Still, at the heart of each of Brown’s accomplishments is his passion for words. Coming from a long line of educators, he calls himself a “vagabond teacher.” As the creative arts instructor at the National Center for Children and Families [NCCF] this past summer, he taught poetry to elementary school girls, where he was often the center of attention.
“As far as the presence of black men in education,” says Brown, “there’s not that many. One little girl constantly stared, studying me, holding that eye contact.” Brown says he was flattered until it proved to be too much of a good thing.
“The first week of the code-red heat in July, I’m trying to teach the girls how to write a me poem [about themselves]. It’s really hot, no air conditioning, and one of my students gets a nosebleed. ‘Why we writing, Mr. Brown?’ It got so hot we had to leave before she finished. I said, ‘Go home; come back tomorrow.’ The little girl said, ‘But I want to stay and finish my poem.’ She stares at me and then all of a sudden, it’s ‘Waahhh!’ I look around and here comes her grandmother, talking about ‘Mr. Brown, what’d you do to my grandbaby?’ Oh, God. I never had a little girl cry on me before.”
“I’m always learning. Maybe I ought to write a poem about that.” —Glen Finland, MFA ’06 Glen Finland teaches College Writing in AU’s Department of Literature. |
