Remembering Wendell Brown

For more than two decades before his death in 2014, homeless Vietnam veteran Wendell Brown treated Brentwood residents to “Poems on the Go,” on San Vicente Blvd near Vicente Foods.
In 2015, a bronze statue in his honor was unveiled near his usual spot. To celebrate his contributions to the community, a tribute was held to honor him at the Brentwood Branch Library on June 25, where several members of the community read a number of his poems.
Mary Ann Garvey, chairman of the Friends Program Committee at the Friends of the Kaufman Brentwood Branch Library opened the proceedings by letting attendees know that a miniature sculpture of Brown, along with a hardbound copy of his book “The Ballads of Bushman” printed in 1993, would be displayed at the library.
The original sculpture was the brainchild of Lauren Rojany and Marc Jacoby and local artist Jonathan Bickert; a former teacher at Brentwood Art School agreed to donate his time to create the sculpture.
Rojany and Jacoby spearheaded fundraising efforts for the $15,000 sculpture together with local residents Nancy Freedman and Jeff Hall. The sculpture is inscribed with Brown’s poem “Brentwood Don’t Change,” which Garvey read to the assembled crowd.
A souvenir brochure with three of Brown’s poems was given to every attendee.
Brown was born in 1945 in Little Rock, Arkansas and moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was 14. At 21 he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in Vietnam, until his honorable discharge in 1971.
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 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, attracting praise from actresses Roseanne Barr and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Brown is buried in the Arkansas State Veterans cemetery in Little Rock