Audrey was born on the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Her Mum and Dad were factory workers, who raised her in South Auckland with her sisters. Adopted as a baby, her birth parents were students at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. A graduate of Auckland University and the National University of Samoa. She is the published poet of three poetry collections and contributor to several anthologies.
Where is your favorite place to write?
I don’t have a favourite place – I can write anywhere and often do. I like to write when I am alone with music around me.
Favorite writing snack?
Dark chocolate and coffee
Why poetry?
Why not!
A poem that had a big impact on you and why?
To be honest it was contemporary Pacific art that had the biggest impact on informing my poetry. Artists such as Fatu Feu’u and Lily Laita who I studied as a high school student at Epsom Girls Grammar. Their work. The colour. The patterns. Movement, expression and form!
Share about the first time you read poetry by a Pacific Islander.
I didn’t read any Pacific island poetry until I was at university. The first ones would have to be Alistair Teariki Campbell and Albert Wendt.
Favorite book when you were a teenager? why?
I grew up in New Zealand so for me it was Alex by Tessa Duder. Accessible. Easy to read. Alex as a character is strong and wilful. An individual who is not a conventional beauty, but nonetheless beautiful. I was never a swimmer, but as a reader I was swimming in those heats with Alex, cheering her on to win.
Your answer/advice to someone who says, ‘Poetry is too hard to understand’
Poetry comes in all forms, so find what suits you. I think of art and music as poetry. In multiple forms that can transcend words on the page.
Whats your writer dream goal?
Answer: So many!
To write more poetry as digital art in moving images with sound and voice that feature in art galleries and in the virtual world. To write a novel, a feature film and a book of poetry that are biographies of people I want to celebrate.
Buy Audrey’s a – wake – (e) nd ebook
Audrey Brown-Pereira
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Vaivase Street,
Apia,
Samoa, Samoa - 7634778
