Nathan Brown | |
|---|---|
 Brown in 2013 | |
| Occupation | Poet, author, singer-songwriter |
| Notable awards | 2009 Oklahoma Book Award |
| Website | |
| www | |
Nathan Brown is an author, singer-songwriter, and award-winning poet who served as the Oklahoma Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2014. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Nathan Brown was born in Longview, Texas [5] on March 16, 1965. [6] His family moved to Norman, Oklahoma in January 1970, where he grew up and went to college. He was a professional musician in Nashville, Tennessee in his 20s and 30s. [7] He now hails from Wimberley, [8] a small town in the Hill Country of Texas where he has lived with his wife, Ashley, since 2013.
Nathan holds an interdisciplinary PhD in English and Journalism [9] with an emphasis in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Oklahoma. [10] [2] After teaching at OU for almost twenty years, he returned to the Austin area to be closer to the music scene there and tours the country full-time as a poet, musician, and workshop leader. [11] He has published 20 books, one of which (Two Tables Over) won the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry, [8] [1] and another, Karma Crisis: New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize in New Jersey. [8] [12] He is the founder of Mezcalita Press. [6]
Brown has performed at numerous events including the Wordfest at the Waco Arts Cultural Fest, [11] the Taos Poetry Festival, [9] and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. [13] Brown has taught many writing workshops, including writing family stories at the Moore Library, [14] the Writers Workshop at Norman Public Library, [15] and ekphrastic poetry at the Fred Jones Museum of Art, [16] He was an artist-in-residence at the University of Central Oklahoma. [11] He also began as the instructor for the Descanso Creatives intensive workshop series in 2018. The workshops are a "deep-dive" and culturally-immersive writing experience. Beginning in Tuscany, Italy, future workshops are planned for Ireland (2019) and France (2020).
Brown edited the 2014 anthology Oklahoma Poems and their Poets which includes poetry by several notable poets, including Joy Harjo, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Naomi Shihab Nye, Benjamin Myers, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Carol Hamilton, Francine Ringold, and N. Scott Momaday. [17]
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.
George Elliott Clarke, is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015, and as the 2016–2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known largely for its use of a vast range of literary and artistic traditions, its lush physicality and its bold political substance. One of Canada's most illustrious poets, Clarke is also known for chronicling the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that he has coined "Africadia".
Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
Ron Smith is an American poet and the first writer-in-residence at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, Virginia.
The Poet Laureate of Oklahoma is the poet laureate for the U.S. state of Oklahoma.
Diana Lucille Lang, known professionally as D. L. Lang, is an American poet. She has published twelve full-length books of poetry, and served as the Poet Laureate of Vallejo, California.
Carol Hamilton was the Oklahoma Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997.
Violet McDougal (1893–1989) was an American poet. She was the first poet laureate of the state of Oklahoma, serving from 1923 to 1931.
Jeanetta Calhoun Mish is an American poet and served as Oklahoma's twenty-first poet laureate.
Jennie Harris Oliver was an American writer.
Carl Braun Sennhenn is an American writer and academic who served from as the 14th Poet Laureate of Oklahoma from 2001 until 2003. Along with Francine Ringold, he is one of two poets to win the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry twice, in 2007 and in 2013. He is a former professor at Rose State College, where he also served as a Dean of Humanities.
Betty Lou Shipley was the twelfth poet laureate of the state of Oklahoma. Shipley's term as laureate was cut short by her death. Along with authoring three books of poetry, Shipley was the poetry editor for Byline Magazine and operator of Full Count Press and, later, Broncho Press.
Paul William Kroeger (1907-1977) was Oklahoma's second poet laureate, appointed in 1931 by Governor William H. Murray. Though his work appeared in periodicals and anthologies, Kroeger never published a volume of poems, and his work is rarely read today.
Della Iona Cann Young (1872-1945) was Oklahoma's fourth poet laureate, appointed in 1943 by Governor Robert S. Kerr.
Rudolph Nelson Hill (1903-1980) was the eighth poet laureate of Oklahoma, appointed by Governor Henry Bellmon, in 1966. Born in Missouri, Hill was raised in central Oklahoma and lived most of his life in Wewoka. Hill was educated at The University of Oklahoma and worked as a lawyer. In 1970, Hill was a named a Poet Laureate Emeritus by Governor Dewey Bartlett.
Leslie A. McRill (1886-1982) was the ninth poet laureate of Oklahoma, appointed by Governor Dewey F. Bartlett in 1970. McRill was born in Kansas but lived much of his life in Oklahoma and graduated from the college which is now Oklahoma City University. He also earned a master's degree in French from the University of Southern California.
Maggie Culver Fry (1900-1998) was the tenth poet laureate of Oklahoma, appointed in 1977 by Governor David L. Boren. Fry wrote her first poem at the age of 10 and now has more than 800 stories, poems, and articles published.
Eddie D. Wilcoxen served as the eighteenth poet laureate of the state of Oklahoma, appointed by Governor Brad Henry. Previous to his appointment, Wilcoxen was well known as a broadcaster with KWHW (AM) in Altus, Oklahoma. Wilcoxen's poetry is best classified as "folk" poetry, with an emphasis on rural life and traditions. Wilcoxen was also an accomplished karateka, training under the accomplished karateka and kickboxer, Joe Lewis. Wilcoxen then went on to create his own form of karate that he named Kihido Karate, kihido meaning "The Shining Spirit Way".
Benjamin Myers is an American poet, essayist, educator, and musician. In 2015, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin appointed Myers the twentieth poet laureate of Oklahoma. He has written three books of poetry, and his poems have appeared in many nationally prominent periodicals.
Quraysh Ali Lansana is an American poet, book editor, civil rights historian, and professor. He has authored 20 books in poetry, nonfiction and children’s literature. In 2022, he was a Tulsa Artist Fellow and Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, where he was also Lecturer in Africana Studies and English. Lansana is also credited as creator and executive producer of "Focus: Black Oklahoma," a monthly radio program on the public radio station KOSU.
