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Mahogany Browne concludes her poem “Apply Pressure”— dedicated to the family of Breonna Taylor—with a promise: “Our ancestors already vowed riding low beneath the water tides or inside the hull of this nation’s nightmare / we will never be gone again.”

A performance poet, writer, curator, and organizer, Browne hails from Oakland California, and dropped out of high school after being told not to write poetry in class. Browne first found her creative footing at the acclaimed Nuyorican Poets Café, and after an unrivaled 13 year stint curating the acclaimed Friday Night Slam, completed an MFA at the Pratt Institute.

Browne has since made young adult and children’s literature her playground, exploring stories of social justice, activism, courage, empathy, and girlhood with charm and candor. In recent works like Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, and Black Girl Magic, Browne constructs a world where Black girlhood is “free, unforgettable and luminous”—a far cry from the narratives she grew up hearing.

 “Growing up a black girl in America, I became aware of who was listening to me when I spoke. And who wasn’t—which was the world,” she told Pen America in 2020. The resolve of Black women that came before her reverberates throughout Browne’s works, especially her meditation on the meaning of freedom in “Litany.”

Currently, Browne serves as the Executive Director of JustMedia, a media literacy initiative designed to support the groundwork of criminal justice leaders and community members through an open access archive. Browne still calls Brooklyn her home, and just released her latest project, a poetry collection responding to the impact of mass incarceration on women and children, called I Remember Death By Its Proximity to What I Love.

American author Dhonielle Clayton, called Browne “a searing voice that commands attention.” We couldn’t agree more.