In Memory of Kurt Brown
Last week, author, poet and good friend Kurt Brown died after a sudden illness. Every night this week at midnight Pacific, I am posting something to honor his memory including one of his poems each day. If you wish to read tonight’s reflection, hit More.
So there we were in the mid-80s, Kurt and I wanderers on our respective creative pilgrimages, he on the East coast, me on the West, seeking enlightenment and meaning in our lives, if not gainful employment.
Eventually I discovered screenwriting which proved Kurt right: There was something out there.
Kurt discovered something, too.
One of the organizations Kurt founded was something called Writers’ Conferences and Centers. Kurt explained it to me several times, I could never quite get what he was talking about, but what I did grasp was that Kurt suddenly started appearing at writers conferences around the country, teaching, lecturing, mentoring. And at one of those conferences, he met Laure-Anne Bosselaar.
These two poets got married and that marked the beginning a prodigious period in both Kurt and Laure-Anne’s creative lives.
His collections of poetry include Return of the Prodigals (1999), More Things in Heaven and Earth (2002), Fables from the Ark (2004), Future Ship (2007), No Other Paradise (2010), Time-Bound (2012), A Thousand Kim (2013), as well as six chapbooks. With his wife, the poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Brown translated The Plural of Happiness: Selected Poems of Herman de Coninck (2006). His memoir, Lost Sheep: Aspen’s Counterculture in the 1970s, was published in 2012.
Former editor of the highly regarded journal, Aspen Anthology, Brown also edited numerous poetry anthologies, including Drive, They Said: Poems About Americans and Their Cars (1994); Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars (1997), with Laure-Anne Bosselaar; Verse & Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics (1998); The Measured Word: On Poetry and Science (2001); Blues for Bill (2005), an anthology of poems for William Matthews; Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk to Other Poems (2007), co-edited with Harold Schechter; and Killer Verse: Poems about Murder and Mayhem (2010), also with Harold Schechter.
Love brought them together, but I like to think the Muses had a hand in it as well. For Kurt and Laure-Anne inspired each other to write, working together and as individuals, creating some truly wonderful poetry.
Here is another poem Kurt wrote that has always stuck with me:
Fisherman
By Kurt Brown
A man spends his whole life fishing in himself
for something grand. It’s like some lost lunker, big enough
to break all records. But he’s only heard rumors, myths,
vague promises of wonder. He’s only felt the shadow
of something enormous darken his life. Or has he?
Maybe it’s the shadow of other fish, greater than his,
the shadow of other men’s souls passing over him.
Each day he grabs his gear and makes his way
to the ocean. At least he’s sure of that: or is he? Is it the ocean
or the little puddle of his tears? Is this his dinghy
or the frayed boards of his ego, scoured by storm?
He shoves off, feeling the land fall away under his boots.
Soon he’s drifting under clouds, wind whispering blandishments
in his ears. It could be today: the water heaves
and settles like a chest. . . He’s not far out.
It’s all so pleasant, so comforting — the sunlight,
the waves. He’ll go back soon, thinking: “Maybe tonight.”
Night with its concealments, its shadow masking all other shadows.
Night with its privacies, its alluringly distant stars.
Kurt fished for something grand, all right. He found it. In his creativity. His writing. His friends. His family. And his soul-mate Laure-Anne.
May we all take inspiration as we, too, fish for something grand.
You may learn more about Kurt by going here.
An obituary in the Aspen Daily News.
You may find some of Kurt’s original poetry as well as numerous books he has edited here.
For Part 1 of my tribute to Kurt, you may go here.
For Part 2, go here.
Godspeed, Kurt. God be with you, Laure-Anne.
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