A native of Shreeport, Louisiana, Brown worked as a speechwriter for New Orleans Mayor Marc Murial before receiving his Ph. D. in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. His first poetry collection, Please, won the 2009 American Book Award. His second and most recently published collection, The New Testament, was named a “Best Book of 2014” by Library Journal. Brown currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where he teaches creative writing at Emory University.