Mahogany L. Browne | |
|---|---|
 Mahogany L. Browne in Miami | |
| Born | Lesley Tims 1976 (age 47–48) Oakland, California |
| Occupation | Poet and author |
| Alma mater | Pratt Institute |
| Literary movement | Activism, children's books |
Mahogany L. Browne, (born Lesley Tims, 1976) is an American poet [1] curator, writer, organizer and educator. As of July 2021, Browne is the first-ever poet-in-residence at New York City's Lincoln Center. [2]
Mahogany L. Browne was born and raised in Oakland, California [3] before moving to Brooklyn, New York in 1999. [4] She recalls never having imagined moving to New York permanently as someone born and raised in Oakland, California but after her summer residency at Pratt Institute ended, she decided to stay. [ citation needed ]
She is known for her thirteen-year tenure as the Friday Night Slam curator and Poetry Program director at the Nuyorican Poets Café in Lower Manhattan. In 2019, Browne served as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) program coordinator at her alma mater, Pratt Institute, [3] where she was also a visiting instructor. [5]
Browne is currently the executive director at Bowery Poetry Club, founded by Bob Holman in 2003. Browne is also the artistic director at Urban Word NYC, Poetry Coordinator at St. Francis College and the author of several books (including children's books), stage plays, articles and audio recordings. The founder of Penmanship Books, [3] Browne has received numerous awards and fellowships, among which is a fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund (A4J). The Academy of American Poets has published several blog essays [6] of Browne's through their partnership with A4J. [7]
In 2019, Browne received a SWACC! Focus Fellowship, which is awarded to a spoken word author whose lifelong creative work has demonstrated a commitment to building community through collaborative models. [8]
She was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry. [9]
She was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry. [9]
Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.
Sonia Sanchez is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has written over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays, plays, and children's books. In the 1960s, Sanchez released poems in periodicals targeted towards African-American audiences, and published her debut collection, Homecoming, in 1969. In 1993, she received Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and in 2001 was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for her contributions to the canon of American poetry. She has been influential to other African-American poets, including Krista Franklin. Sanchez is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.
Claudia Rankine is an American poet, essayist, playwright and the editor of several anthologies. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays.
Alicia Elsbeth Stallings is an American poet, translator, and essayist.
Tracy K. Smith is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She has published five collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015.
Jabari Asim is an American author, poet, playwright, and professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the former editor-in-chief of The Crisis magazine, a journal of politics, ideas and culture published by the NAACP and founded by historian and social activist W. E. B. Du Bois in 1910. In February 2019 he was named Emerson College's inaugural Elma Lewis '43 Distinguished Fellow in the Social Justice Center. In September 2022 he was named Emerson College Distinguished Professor of Multidisciplinary Letters.
Carol Muske-Dukes is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and professor, and the former poet laureate of California (2008–2011). Her most recent book of poetry, Sparrow, chronicling the love and loss of Muske-Dukes’ late husband, actor David Dukes, was a National Book Award finalist.
Irving Feldman is an American poet and professor of English.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.
Marilyn Nelson is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and the Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994, she published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and children. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry.
Camille T. Dungy is an American poet and professor.
Danez Smith is a poet, writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. They are queer, non-binary and HIV-positive. They are the author of the poetry collections [insert] Boy and Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, both of which have received multiple awards. Their most recent poetry collection Homie was published on January 21, 2020.
Jess X. Snow is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, public artist and poet.
Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese-American poet known for her written and spoken poetry. Elhillo received a BA degree from the Gallatin School at New York University and an MFA in poetry from The New School. Elhillo has performed all around the world. She has won acclaim for her work and has been the recipient of several prestigious poetry awards. Elhillo has shared the stage with notable poets such as Sonia Sanchez and has taught at Split This Rock. Currently, she is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
Emma Neale is a novelist and poet from New Zealand.
Olivia Gatwood is a poet, writer, and educator on topics that include coming of age, feminism, gendered violence, & true crime.
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Camonghne Felix is an American writer, poet, and communications strategist. In 2015, she was appointed as Governor Andrew Cuomo's speechwriter, and was the first black woman and youngest person to serve in the role. Her debut poetry collection, Build Yourself a Boat, was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award.
Joshua Bennett is an American author, professor and artist. He is a Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of Humanities at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
DaMaris B. Hill is an American writer, scholar, and educator. She is the author of Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood, A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the American Heartland, \Vi-zə-bəl\ \Teks-chərs\ , and other books. Her digital work includes “Shut Up In My Bones”, a twenty-first-century poem. Hill is a Professor of Creative Writing, English, and African American Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective
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