Confessions of a Minor Poet

By: Phil Brown

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Paperback | 1 October 2025

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23.4 x 15.3

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'What a life. What a book. When it's not making your ribs rattle with laughter, it's making your heart ache with all the pathos and poetry. A memory box of jewels from a true Brisbane treasure.' Trent Dalton

Hilarious, heartfelt and revealing.

Phil Brown tells all (well almost all) in this rollicking account of his career in literature and journalism from The Morning Bulletin in Rockhampton to Melbourne's Sunday Age and back to The Courier-Mail in Brisbane. He shares his challenges as a young surfer foolishly yearning to be a poet and his personal struggles on the road to becoming a writer with a fluctuating passion for poetry and a top drawer full of rejection slips. There are the seminal friendships with poets Bruce Dawe and Les Murray and a cavalcade of characters from the world of arts and letters Barry Humphries, Willem Dafoe, Daniel Craig, Alain de Botton, Richard E. Grant and a cavalcade of characters he meets (and interviews) along the way, for better and occasionally, worse.

Confessions of a Minor Poet is a hugely entertaining memoir that shows us all how the life of a writer can be frustrating, even enraging but ultimately life-enriching. This is a vital, wild and affectionate ride across Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, from the seventies to now.

About the Author

Phil Brown is a journalist, poet, author, and editor of the independent arts website In Review Queensland which features on the website indailyqld.com.au. He was formerly Arts Editor of The Courier-Mail and over a four-decade career has written for a range of national and international newspapers and magazines. He has published his poetry widely in the mainstream press and literary journals. He is the author of two books of verse, Plastic Parables and An Accident in the Evening. His book of humorous travel stories, Travels with My Angst was shortlisted for the Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award at the 2005 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Any Guru Will Do was the second in his memoir series and the third, The Kowloon Kid, was shortlisted for The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award in 2020. He lives in Brisbane’s inner-north with his wife Sandra McLean.

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