Wendy Brown-Baez, Neé Wendy Brown, Was Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Moved to Santa

Biography of Wendy Brown-Báez

Wendy Brown-Báez, neé Wendy Luann Brown, was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1954 and moved to Santa Fe in 1973. It was here that she met Frank Moore, a paraplegic who was experimenting with alternative lifestyles, theater, and the arts. Together they created the Human Melting Theater Project in New York City. Eventually she accompanied his family to Berkeley and she helped to direct a series of experimental theater workshops, returning back to Santa Fe in 1976. In 1977, she married Calvin Hedgecoke, a marriage that was short-lived. They briefly lived in Salem, Oregon before returning to Santa Fe. She joined a communal group after the birth of her first son in 1978. The group, based on following the teachings of Jesus as interpreted through the Bible and Apocrypha writings, managed shelters for the homeless, brought free meals down to the parks, and visited people in prison. Brown-Báez was instrumental in developing a program to assist homeless and run-away youth in Seattle, along with Elizabeth Ellis and Gregory Nusbaum. During the years of the commune she traveled extensively, usually by hitch-hiking. She spent time in Boulder, Colorado; Missoula, Montana; Eugene, Oregon; Healdsburg, California; and Seattle, Washington, as well as passed through almost every state in the United States. In 1986, she traveled to Belize with a portion of the group where she stayed for 5 months, then to San Pablo Etla, a small village outside of Oaxaca where she lived for 6 months. From there, the group reconvened in Isleta del Moro, a small fishing village in Spain; camped in the Canary Islands; and moved on to Israel via Greece. In Israel the group broke up but Brown-Báez continued to maintain a residence in Haifa for 3 years. These experiences of selfless service to others, encounters with the impoverished and disenfranchised, a search for truth amidst a sense of betrayal, finding identity and purpose, a longing for peace while surrounded by conflict, and experiencing the rich cultures where she participated as a community member had a profound effect on her creativity, her spiritual development, and especially her poetry.

In 1990 Brown-Báez returned to her hometown in the United States. During this time, she took an extended university creative writing class and her passion for the written word bloomed into the first poems that were on a level to be published. She married an Israeli, Moshe Aharoni, in the hopes of creating a new family and life together. This marriage didn’t last, and they parted as good friends while she was re-establishing her home in Tucson. Because of the financial difficulty and emotional stress of raising both boys as a single parent, her youngest moved to Minnesota to live with his father.

In Tucson she attended a writing workshop for women at the University of Arizona at the same time she was exploring the ideas of the Feminine Divine and the work of Marija Gimbutas, Riana Einsler, Mary Daly, and others. These concepts coalesced in her first novel MoonSense, an epic account of a matri-focal tribe which lived 6000 years ago. This manuscript was accepted twice by small feminist presses but they went out of business before the book could be published. 2

Brown-Báez reconnected with her oldest son’s father Michael Woehler and returned to Santa Fe. At this time she began to develop friendships that would last a lifetime. By participating in weekend retreats organized by Earthwalks for Health, she began to explore alternative healing, indigenous spirituality and ceremony, and the creative process as a source of transformation. In 2001, she met Marcia Starck, a medical astrologer developing her creative side with a women’s poetry group. Marcia invited her into the group and her focus changed predominantly to poetry, although finishing her memoirs and two novels. The group decided to begin themed readings that were performance based, with costumes and props, and named themselves Word Dancers. This group also included Shama Beach, Dana Negev, and Lynne Lazelle. She also became a regular at the writing group Write Action founded by Joan Logghe.

Brown-Báez’s partner, Michael Woehler, was diagnosed with bi-polar illness, became increasingly unstable, and committed suicide in 2002. The impact of his death, combined with the experience of attending the Taos Poetry Circus and participating in an intensive workshop taught by Tanya Taylor using the monologue process, released Brown-Baez from the role of care-giver to consider herself as a professional poet. She began experimenting with new and unique ways to present poetry and was published in several prestigious literary journals.

In 2003, Word Dancers self-published an anthology called Dancing Between Worlds and performances in Albuquerque at the Peace and Justice Center and Page One Bookstore, as well as at Tribes Coffeehouse, Borders Bookstore and Longevity Café in Santa Fe were well-attended. Besides working with Word Dancers, Brown-Báez was branching out to BarB, the local hip hop and slam poetry scene, as a featured poet, and in 2004, self produced a poetry CD called Longing for Home. She began to look for other poets and musicians to collaborate with as she traveled to promote the CD to Berkeley, Albany, Northampton, Minneapolis, and at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. In 2004, she created, directed and performed in a bilingual poetry performance of her own work and other published poets called Jugar con fuego with Alejandro Báez and Victoria Guzzardo in Santa Fe. During most of these years, she earned her income from childcare, retails sales, waitressing, and as the assistant teacher of a preschool class at the Early Childhood Development Center run by the Santa Fe Community College.

Brown-Báez married Alejandro Báez, a younger gay Mexican, in 2004, in order to secure medical treatment for him. She added his last name to hers as a way to claim her niche as a poet that transcends borders. When she lost her younger son by suicide in 2005, her life came to a crashing halt. She was no longer able to live alone and lived with Báez for several months. His sudden return to Mexico soon drew her there as well and in 2006, she helped him to found the art gallery Sol y Luna: Arte sin fronteras in Puerto Vallarta. She lived in Mexico for 6 months, during which time she created a bilingual poetry performance called Dia de los Muertos sponsored by the gallery. This event was well received by neighbors, friends, and members of the Puerto Vallarta writer’s group. 3

She continues to visit Puerto Vallarta and to present poetry at the writer’s group meetings. Alejandro passed away from complications of AIDS in June 2009, leaving her a widow.

By Christmas of 2006, Brown-Báez had moved to Minneapolis to provide child care for her grandsons and to take care of an increasing problem with arthritis due to a childhood congenital bone defect. She developed writing workshops that used writing as a therapeutic tool and founded “Writing Circles for Healing: words to light our way.” In 2008 she received a McKnight Foundation grant through COMPAS Community Art Program to teach a bilingual writing/performance workshop with at risk youth at El Colegio Charter School which culminated in a public performance. She sought out groups to write with and soon developed a network through Intermedia Arts, Northography writing workshop website, the Mid-town Writer’s Group and Twin Cities Woman Poets and Writers. She taught her women’s writing workshop Common Threads, Unique Voices at the Madeline Island Women’s Week-end, Amazon Bookstore Collective, the Women & Spirituality Conference at the University of Minnesota in Mankato, and Celebrate Yourself women’s retreat. She co-facilitated a writing/yoga workshop with Gaia Richards called Spiritual Tune Up and was a mentor in Intermedia Art’s Wings program. She performed at local venues in Minneapolis such as the Casket Arts Building, Columbia Grounds Café, Patrick’s Cabaret, Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, Northeast Community Lutheran Church, Stevens Square Center for the Arts, and The Loft Literary Center, as well as returned to New Mexico and to Puerto Vallarta for performances. Since 2004, she has performed 12 – 18 times a year with the exception of the year 2005.

In 2009, Brown-Báez’s first full length collection of poems Ceremonies of the Spirit was published by Plain View Press. The book debuted when she featured at the Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago. Also in 2009 she received another McKnight grant, this time a writing workshop with the students of Face to Face Academy Charter school and clients of SafeZone drop in center. She developed the project In the Shelter of Words as a multimedia art installation centered on a CD recording of the student’s writings. She continues to travel to perform her poetry and teach writing groups.

Wendy Brown-Báez’s work has appeared in Borderlands: a Texas Poetry Review, The Chrysalis Reader, Central Avenue, EDGZ, The Litchfield Review, Out of Line, Sin Fronteras, THE Magazine, Poesia, Blue Collar Review, Common Ground Review, americas review, The Awakenings Review, Minnetonka Review, Mississippi Crow, Mizna, We’Moon datebook 2009 and 2010, Wising Up Press, CRAM 4, Lilitamba, Flask and Pen, Moxie, Banderas News, poetsagainstthewar.com, The Arts Paper, and Lunarosity.

Dancing Between Worlds was published by Earth Medicine Books 2003, Longing for Home, poetry CD was produced in 2004, and Ceremonies of the Spirit was published by Plain View Press in 2009.