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Born in Massachusetts, Ronnie Brown has spent most of her adult life in Canada, living first in Montreal and then in Ottawa, where she now resides with her husband and son.
Brown earned both her B.A. and M.A. (in Creative Writing) from Montreal's Concordia University, where she was awarded both the Board of Governors' and the Graduate Students' Award for excellence in poetry. She has taught at both Concordia and Carleton Universities.
The authour of three collections of poetry, Brown's work has also appeared in over 100 magazines in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, and in numerous anthologies. Brown's work has also appeared in a number of less conventional places and can be found on Ottawa busses, on postcards and even on a poster.
Brown has produced and hosted radio programmes for both Ottawa universities and, for almost a decade, acted as producer and host of SPARKS II, a programme devoted to literature and the arts which aired on CHEZ 106 FM in Ottawa.
A popular participant at litarary readings, Brown has also produced and hosted several radio programmes.
As well, Brown has been a winner and/or finalist in numerous writing competitions including: The CBC Literary competition, The LCP contest, The Sandburg-Livesay Contest and the Tidepool Poetry Contest.
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Night Echoes
In the prologue of Night Echoes, a father advises his young daughter that, to truly understand another person, you have to "go to sleep at night in her bed; dream her dreams," The poems in this collection do just that.
Brown slips effortlessly into the skins and the dreams of her characters, providing each with a distinct voice and a unique vision, offering glimpses into the realities of a frightened boy, a sad widower, a harried young mother dreaming of escape, a woman whose nights are filled with thoughts of violence and many more.
Poetry, 80 pages, $15
ISBN 0-88753-425-2
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States of Matter
"Seldom can a book of poetry be called a page-turner, but Brown's States of Matter contains absorbing micro-novels, enticing you with situations that could be yours or a friend's." Canadian Bookseller
"In less than a page, she creates an entire scene story, overwhelming in its texture and deeply reverberating in terms of subject matter." The Charlatan Book Review
Ronnie R. Brown's poems always seem more like tiny novels. A complete world is often fashioned in a page or two.
"We live in an age of Sesame Street moments, thus, poetry is perfect for our time," says Brown. "Few today can find time for a novel, or even the shortest short story, but a poem? I encourage people to take my book with them and read it anywhere, even the bathroom. Poetry is perfect to read anywhere."
Poetry, Palm Poets Series, 96 pages, 5.375 x 6.125, $17.95
ISBN 0-88753-404-X
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Photographic Evidence
Short-listed for the Archibald Lampman Award
the only female version of Layton that I can see on the horizon....[wih] a ribald humour and lustiness of touch that's all [her] own. [Her] blend of wit and eroticism is unique.
-Irving Layton
Canadian poet, Gary Geddes says "Ronnie R. Brown has spent much of her creative life shuffling lenses, playing with linguistic filters, adjusting the verbal light that falls on Diane Arbus's freaks and her own albums of saints and sinners, each constituting a 'tiny village of the damned.' Hers is a quirky vision of reality...read her work and 'smile.'"
Poetry, Paperback $17.95
ISBN 0-88753-347-7
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The house is full
of the smell of fresh-baked cinnamon
rolls, a treat she has prepared to make her family's Sunday
breakfast special. A treat
she will not allow herself to taste.
Sitting at the kitchen table
bran flakes and black coffee
ignored, she scans
the only section of the paper left unclaimed.
On page two of THE WORLD
a shy sixteen year old
surrounded by plates of food
looks back at her. The article explains that, deemed "too thin" by her father, the girl
has been sent to spend time in
"the fattening room." Not allowed to
work or move, she must stay there
and eat until she is rounder, fuller,
more firmly packed,
has transformed herself into
a woman men will long for.
She reads on amazed, comparing
her own history
her first diet at twelve, undertaken at her parents'
urging; eating only one meal a day for half
her senior high school year so she
could buy a size seven prom gown; years
of subsisting on little or nothing
to stay thin; her husband's joking
comment, made only days before,
involving the size of her rear end
and the relative dimensions of barn doors.
In the newspaper, the young girl,
her hips full, her eyes downcast,
looks out across an ocean
into the mirror universe that is
her world. A place,
where for all its modern trappings, perfection
still dangles
just a few elusive pounds away.
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