Nancy R. Chandler Lecture Series

Writer, organizer, vocalist, performance poet, and educator Mahogany L. Browne is the author of poetry and fiction. Her illustrated poetry book Black Girl Magic celebrates a black girlhood that is “free, unforgettable, and luminous” (School Library Journal), while her children’s book Woke Baby is for all the littlest progressives who grow up to change the world; both were published in 2018 by Roaring Brook/Macmillan. Her other YA titles include Vinyl Moon (Penguin Random House, 2021), which weaves together prose, poems, and vignettes to tell the story of a young woman whose past was shaped by domestic violence but whose love of language and music and the gift of community grant her the chance to find herself again; and Chlorine Sky (Penguin Random House, 2021), which Elizabeth Acevedo designated “an absolute masterpiece.”

Browne’s boldly lyrical and and fiercely honest poetry intricately mines the experience of being a Black woman in America. Her collections include: Chrome Valley (W. W. Norton, 2023), which was a Best Book of 2023 in TIME, Electric Literature and received Paterson Poetry Prize (2024); I Remember Death By Its Proximity to What I Love (Haymarket Books, 2021); Kissing Caskets (YesYes Books, 2017); and the NAACP-nominated chapbook Redbone (Willow Books, 2016). From maternal lineage, young love, and friendship to inherited traumas and the systemic violence of incarceration, her body of work sings sacred and loud.

Her most recent book A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe (Penguin Random House, 2025) is a poignant mixed voice, mixed form collection of interconnected prose, poems, and stories following teen characters, their families, and their communities as they grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. Booklist’s starred review for the collection praised the work as, “singularly relevant in its unsparing examination of the plague and its impact on young lives.”

Browne has co-edited the anthology The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 3: Black Girl Magic, declared by Dazed as “one of the most important volumes of poetry in recent years.” She is also the author of the the YA anthology WOKE: A Young Poets Guide To Justice (Roaring Brook Press, 2020), co-edited with Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood.

Born in Berkeley, California, Browne dropped out of high school after being told not to write poetry during an English honors class. Using her personal experiences with addiction, racism, sexism and oppression to inspire her own brand of shameless authentic work, Browne’s performances create a platform for women and girls to feel empowered and heard.

She has a MFA in Writing and Activism from Pratt Institute, where she founded the Women Writers of Color Reading Room and became the director of the Black Lives Matter program. She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, she served as curator of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Friday Night Slam for thirteen years, and is presently the artistic director at Urban Word NYC (a non-profit youth literary organization). Browne is one of the founders of the socially active literary collective #BlackPoetsSpeakOut (with Amanda Johnston, Jonterri Gadson, Jericho Brown, and Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe), created out of urgency and as a response to the non-indictment of the Mike Brown’s murderer.

Her work has appeared in Poetry, Bustle, BET, Academy of American Poets, and other venues. She has also released six LPs, including studio album Chrome Valley (a collaboration with Sean Mason), and live album Sheroshima.

Browne has received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Kennedy Center, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, & UCross. Browne has been featured in PBS NewsHour reading her poem “Black Girl Magic”, Kelly Corrigan’s Tell Me More, and in HBO’s Brave New Voices. She has toured internationally as a member of Global Poetics, an international arts exchange.

Mahogany L. Browne is the founder of Woke Baby Book Fair, a traveling diverse reading campaign, Black Girl Ball, and received an honorary doctorate from Marymount Manhattan College. She is the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and writes across the genre as a resident of Brooklyn, NY.