Brentwood’s own poet laureate of San Vicente Blvd. is gone but not forgotten. To honor the late Wendell Brown, the community will unveil a bronze sculpture in memory of “Brentwood’s Uplifting Poet” Sunday, Oct. 11. The reveal will take place at at 12 pm in the spot Brown often occupied in front of Vicente Foods and Pharmaca at 12011 San Vicente Blvd.
Brown, 69, died September 1 at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood after a brief illness.
To create the bronze likeness of Brown, Brentwood leaders and neighbors generously commissioned Los Angeles artist Jonathan Bickart.
Motorists and passersby regularly bought Brown’s poems or gave him a contribution of food or cash. Many gave him items purchased at Vicente Foods or the Farmers Market. He won people’s hearts with his upbeat poetry about the human condition, love, God, or whatever was on his mind that day.
A Vietnam veteran, Brown emerged from the war a changed man, suffering from depression and addiction thereafter. While working as a bricklayer in 1983, Brown had a flashback of a woman he watched being slaughtered after she helped him hide from Viet Cong soldiers. He fell off his ladder and dislocated his back. He had been afraid to work ever since that accident and had been on the streets ever since.
In 1991, after receiving psychological help and 90 days of treatment, Brown came to Brentwood. He found local fame with verses and rhymes in tow, attracting praise from actresses Roseanne Barr and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Brown was buried at Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery in his birthplace of North Little Rock.
Though homeless for much of his adult life, Brown inspired an entire community in the face of his own challenges through his poetry and compassion for others. Now, this sculpture will have a permanent home, right in the same place where residents used to see him.
