Major moments for a minor poet – Phil Brown reveals all
Screenwriter and playwright Stephen Vagg talks to InReview Queensland editor Phil Brown about his upcoming memoir, Confessions of a Minor Poet.
Tell us a little bit about Phil Brown, for those who don’t know him, and how would you describe yourself and your new book, Confessions of a Minor Poet?
Gosh, the hard questions first. I’m pretty indescribable, but I guess you could say I’m a journalist who is really a poet and, on the inside, still an 18-year-old surfie. My new book traces my journalistic and literary career from its unlikely beginnings at Miami State High School on the Gold Coast in the 1970s. Yes, I am old.
You’re known as a journalist but, as the title implies, you have a long relationship with poetry. How did you fall in love with this medium?
By necessity. As a teenager I couldn’t contain my emotions and felt I had to write and poetry was the form I chose back then, inspired by Leonard Cohen and the poetry of The Beatles’ songs.
The book reads as though at times you were inspired by the lifestyle of poets (down and out in Paris, drinking, smoking, etc) as much as poetry itself, with possibly not entirely healthy outcomes. Could you talk a little about that?
I was enamoured of many writers who were a bit tragic … Plath, Keats, D.H. Lawrence, Hemingway. I thought that one had to be a little fractured to be a writer and that certain substances including alcohol were part of the deal. I no longer think that. The Latin phrase in vino veritas (in wine, there is truth) is utter bullshit.
Your childhood wasn’t always easy – alcoholic dad, assault from the assistant headmaster. How did this inform your writing?
You might like
I guess everyone has some form of trauma in their childhood. My dad was a wonderful man and not at all violent but unfortunately alcoholism robbed him of the best years of his life and he died at 55. It was heartbreaking for us as a family. As for the assault from the assistant headmaster – he was a psychopath in a crisp white shirt and a sensible tie. Hopefully, he is learning some lessons now in the Underworld.
The book could be subtitled, ‘confessions of a minor surfer’. How has surfing shaped your writing?
Surfing got me through my teenage years and was an important part of shaping me. Not sure how it affected my writing, but it shaped me. And surfing is a form of poetry in motion and was quite countercultural in the 1970s.
I loved this quote, ‘Wanting to be a writer is, of course, much easier than being one. I spent my whole gap year wanting to be a writer without actually writing. It was bliss’. How did you learn to ‘actually write’, to put words on the page?
Having to write for work helped. My first gig as an advertising copywriter at a radio station was helpful and as a journalist you have to write every day, so that helped too. Sometimes, however, not writing can also be productive as a time of gestation, as long as the gestation ultimately leads to a birth of some sort.
There are some very vivid descriptions of Queensland towns at the time – Toowoomba, Gold Coast, Monto – that aren’t exactly flattering. Yet (your time in Melbourne aside) you’ve basically been a Queensland writer. Why did you stay in Queensland and not head off to London, Sydney, etc?
Because I lived overseas as a boy and travelled widely I didn’t have the same yen to go abroad as other youngsters. And I was actually keen to experience life in Australian regional towns. And this was where the work was, so I stayed. Later my travels were curtailed because of various problems including high anxiety. But when my life stabilised and I got married, at the ripe old age of 35, I began to venture abroad more. But I loved my time in regional Queensland and have always enjoyed living here and more so now that we are no longer a laughing stock.
There’s a lot about struggles – mental health, substance abuse. What was the hardest bit of the book to write?
Writing about my own struggles was tricky but, really, it’s as if that all happened to someone else, a completely different person that was me but is also not me at all. The toughest bit was writing about the deaths of my dad and much later my mum.
Subscribe for updates
A lot of celebrity encounters. Tiny Tim. Bernard King, Barry Humphries, Richard E Grant. Any favourite?
Barry Humphries was a favourite and I’m fortunate to have got to know Barry a bit over the years. I have also interviewed him as Sir Les, which was hilarious. He was a very kind and erudite man and I’m devastated that due to a bout of COVID-19 I couldn’t attend his memorial at Sydney Opera House. I have met and interviewed so many celebrities that it’s hard to think which were also memorable. I did love meeting Willem Dafoe and spending an hour once with Tiny Tim was a hoot.
You flowered quite late romantically (in terms of relationships), although it seems you hit the jackpot with Sandra. What are her thoughts on the book?
She had reservations about it at first because it was revealing. But once she read it she was fine, although she suggested a few things to be excluded. Our life together is the bedrock of my world and my first and only serious relationship, really.
You’ve worked for many publications – Brisbane News, The Australian, The Courier-Mail, etc. Which is your favourite?
Possibly the lifestyle magazine Brisbane News because it was so loved and became such an integral part of Brisbane life. And it had such cachet that it gave me entrée to all sorts of different worlds and opened up travel opportunities. We had a nice office across the road from News Corp’s main building and it was, compared to that, a kind of business lounge. Plus it was fun and I loved the people I worked with including Trent Dalton, of course, who began his career there working alongside me. I was the old fart and he was the wunderkind even though, as I confess in the book, I wasn’t entirely aware of that at the time. He features in the chapter titled Man Swallows Panadol.
You were called ‘the Steve Bradbury of News Corp’ (love the quote). All false modesty aside, what do you attribute your career longevity to?
Loving my work, a happy marriage and trying to live one day at time.
Confessions of a Minor Poet by Phil Brown will be published October 1 by Transit Lounge; transitlounge.com.au/shop/confessions-of-a-minor-poet-a-memoir
Phil Brown will be in conversation with Sean Sennett at the Confessions of a Minor Poet book launch by State Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek on October 9 during Brisbane Writers Festival at Brisbane Powerhouse.
brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/phil-brown-confessions-of-a-minor-poet