Poetry for everyone from the Midwest
I write and perform uncommonly direct poetry about struggling people and places, relationships and families, and journeys of sobriety and faith. I want to share in a community with readers and listeners through the stories I’m honored to tell.
I Write Because I Love
Witness the Work
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Have Humanity Close at Hand
Poetry can inform and awaken
the soul and conscience.
Stories of Rust Belt struggle and strength.
Poetry can console and encourage
the hurting and afflicted.
Journeys of sobriety, faith, and fellowship.
Poetry can be about lost love
and motorcycles.
Odes and artifacts of youthful longing and adventure.
Upcoming Experiences
Intentional Structure
Intentional Structure
Collaborative Energy
Collaborative Energy
Expert Facilitation
Expert Facilitation
Bring Powerful Poems to Life
Have Humanity Close At Hand
These poems inform and awaken, console and encourage, and are a joy to read and reread.
The 59 poems in Fellowship (2026) continue a creative and personal journey begun in News of Need (2025) about the bittersweet wonder of life seen through experiences with sobriety and questions of spirituality and faith. Brown’s poems bring readers and listeners into close contact with unforgettable characters trying to live fuller lives in service to each other and their conception of a higher calling. Many of the poems in Fellowship subtly yet emotionally open moral and philosophical questions while others offer rousing encouragement. These poems seem to say the past is nothing to regret and the future nothing to fear. This is Brown’s third collection of poetry and certain to resonate with anyone seeking communion with the feelings expressed in this excerpt from “Pith”:
His pulsing grip says there has been life
lost to faithless greed and hatred.
If he could speak, it seems he would shout,
Wake up! He would shout, Look,
my broken body is brother to your body.
Are you paying attention? Are you aware
of what is happening at this very moment?
Then tell me, Mister Know-It-All,
what is happening at this very moment?
For more excerpts, read this blog post announcing the release of Fellowship.
News of Need (84 pages) captures more than 40 portraits of people and places that have been left out, looked over, or worked to the bone, but not without the hope of revelation or redemption. This writing has the eye of a reporter, the touch of a painter, and the heart of a storyteller. Brown writes in direct everyday language meant to connect with all readers. This is Brown’s second collection.
Excerpt:
Detroit Commute
Remember us
driving east in the morning
west in the evening
into the sun
visors drawn down
casting violet shadows
across orange mouths slack
open on orbs of hunger
called along the highway
to what eyes cannot see.
Hear sample audio of several poems here.
Steve Brown was born in Flint, Michigan, and studied art in Detroit and Germany where his essay collection Glänze, Gespenst! was published in 2015. His writing has appeared in Witness, Black Warrior Review, Diagram, Dummy Magazine, Public Art Dialogue, and elsewhere, garnering two Pushcart Prize nominations. He has worked as a busboy, cook, roofer, carpenter, landscaper, driver, salesman, librarian, substitute teacher, grant writer, commercial artist, and non-profit director. He is also a visual artist and performer. This is his second collection of poetry.
Trample & Sew (64 pages) contains more than 40 poems about youthful seeking, hapless adventure, and love found and lost from the American Midwest to Eastern Europe. These poems range in tone from romantic longing to hardboiled clarity, often written with a sense of humor and always in everyday language meant to connect with all readers. This is Brown’s first collection of poetry and for the most part includes works completed between 2014 and 2018.
Excerpt:
Great Oaks
I slow race miniature streets
of the nearby cemetery
before entering the country club
also named Great Oaks
where I will try not to sweat
into the salads.
Hear sample audio of several poems here.
Steve Brown was born in Flint, Michigan, and studied art in Detroit and Germany where his essay collection Glänze, Gespenst! was published in 2015. His writing has appeared in Witness, Black Warrior Review, Diagram, Dummy Magazine, Public Art Dialogue, and elsewhere, garnering two Pushcart Prize nominations. He has worked as a busboy, cook, roofer, carpenter, landscaper, driver, salesman, librarian, substitute teacher, grant writer, commercial artist, and non-profit director. He is also a visual artist and performer.