Audrey Alexandra Brown

Who was Audrey Alexandra Brown?

Audrey Alexandra Brown, OC was a Canadian poet.

Brown was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

In 1944, she was the first female poet awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal. In 1967, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for her contributions to Canadian poetry".

After about 1950, literary history suddenly dropped Audrey Alexandra Brown from the poetic canon. Despite the accolades, the awards, and the best wishes of those who early on championed her work, and particularly Toronto professor Pelham Edgar—and those who may have played upon the fact that she was crippled by rheumatic fever—she was side-lined by modernism and professional literary critics. She was aware of what was happening, but helpless to stop it. Her failing, she claimed, was that she had no real experience of life.

She was a personal friend of the Canadian poet and civil servant Duncan Campbell Scott late in his life, and he was influential in introducing Pelham Edgar to her poems.

A very complete archive of her works, manuscripts, and unpublished material is in the Special Collections of the University of Victoria. The only major summary and analysis of her life and writing career can be found in G. Kim Blank's essay in Arc Poetry Magazine, Summer, 2007.