Poet and memoirist Brian Brett, known for signature humour and ruminations on nature, dead at 73

The award-winning writer, memoirist and poet Brian Brett is known for his body of work that showcases his sharp wit and appreciation for nature.

The B.C. author died on Jan. 17, 2024 at the age of 73. He published 13 books, including the poetry collection The Colour of Bones in a Stream and trilogy of memoirs Uproar's Your Only Music, Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Lifeand Tuco and the Scattershot World: A Life with Birds.

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Brett was born with Kallmann Syndrome, a rare genetic condition which left him unable to produce male hormones. He was biologically androgynous until he had a surgery at 15 and his early years were thus fraught with bullying, abuse and feeling of otherness.

At 20, a doctor gave him the prognosis that he wouldn't live past 40. "Well, I fooled everybody, including myself," he told Michael Enright in a 2019 interview on The Sunday Edition, when he was almost 70 years old.

It's that sense of humour and his passion for writing to which he attributed his remarkable ability for survival.

Brett started his career in the 1970s as a freelance journalist and critic, writing for nearly every Canadian newspaper. But above all, he was a poet, delighting in the beauty of the natural world and exploring food through writing.

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Many of his celebrated food poems are found in hiscollection The Colour of Bones in a Stream. Some of his other poetry collections include The Wind River Variations, which explores the relationship between human beings and nature, and his most recent book, To Your Scattered Bodies, published in 2022. His poem by the same name won the CBC Poetry Prize in 2010.

Brett also was recognized for his memoir trilogy, the first of which, Uproar's Your Only Music, is a mix of poetry and prose that tells of his childhood living with Kallmann Syndrome.

His second memoir, Trauma Farm, was a bestseller and won the Writers' Trust Nonfiction Prize in 2009. It explores his connection to the land of Salt Spring Island, B.C., where he lived and ran a farm with hislong-time partner, Sharon Doobenen. While quite rural, it was a place to visit for many of Canadian literature's brightest stars and home to an entire flock of black sheep.

Tuco and the Scattershot World: A Life with Birds is the final memoir of the trilogy, which dives into the special friendship between Brett and his beloved parrot Tuco, who was often found perched on his shoulder, even when he was writing.

"I don't know that it was amazing," he told Enright. "I think that so much of this happens in the world that we're just not conscious of. The way it worked out, with him sitting in the same room as me for 25 years, is that we just deeply bonded. Unconsciously. It was just natural."

LISTEN | Brian Brett on Tuco on The Sunday Edition:

The Sunday Edition24:11'Born strange,' and a remarkable 25-year friendship with a puckish parrot (reprise)

Of the thousands of guests Michael Enright interviewed in his 20 years as host of The Sunday Edition, one of the most singular and entertaining was award-winning B.C. writer Brian Brett. Brett has endured one medical setback after another in his life, but has met them with defiance, humour and a unique perspective on life. Well replay Michaels 2016 interview with Brian Brett about his uncanny 25-year relationship with Tuco, an Arican grey parrot with a diabolical gift for mischief.

Brett was always giving back to the writing community in the forms of both teaching and service. He started the British Columbia Poetry-in-the-Schools program to bring poetry into classrooms and taught workshops across the country. He was also a member of PEN International, the League of Canadian Poets, the Federation of BC Writers and was the chair of the Writers' Union of Canada in 2005.

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In 2016, he won the Writers' Trust Matt Cohen Award celebrating a life of writing. And while accolades and the financial support they provide are appreciated, they were certainly not Brett's driving force.

"The delight is in doing it [writing], not in being known for doing it," he said in a documentary produced by Chris Oke for The Sunday Edition.

Oke met Brett as a journalist interviewing him after he won a literary award. During the interview, Brett mentioned how hard it was to find farm hands and Oke, an aspiring writer, decided to go help him out. As they worked together, the two developed a "karate kid," mentor-mentee relationship, as Oke noted in the documentary, and became good friends.

And so, after a series of health scares in the 2010s, Brett named Oke as his literary executor.

"It's daunting because Brian had such a huge personality and meant so much to so many people," he told CBC Books in a phone interview. "It's a daunting responsibility to do that justice."

In the documentary, however, Brett was philosophical about how his works would live on.

"I write for forever, but I operate on the assumption that when I'm dead, it will all be dead. We're not smart enough to know what time will make of us. And time is the great editor, right?"