Ellen Robbins Poetry Forum
Sponsored by the Ulster Community College Foundation, The Poetry Forum is an annual event which brings well-known and award-winning poets to SUNY Ulster for intimate question and answer sessions, as well as a special reading of their poetry. In 2007, the program was renamed the Ellen Robbins Poetry Forum to honor the memory of Ellen Robbins (1952-2006) who was on the faculty at SUNY Ulster from 1994 until 2006, and Chair of the English department, 2002-2006.
Thursday November 5th, 2020 at 1:15 p.m. via Zoom!
Moderated by Candice VanDyke-London, SUNY Ulster Assistant Professor of English
Introduction by Dolores Quiles, SUNY Ulster Professor of English
Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, organizer, educator, and spoken word poet. She is the author of the YA poetry book Black Girl Magic, and the children’s book Woke Baby. Her poetry collections include Kissing Caskets and Redbone. She co-edited the poetry anthology The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 3: Black Girl Magic and is at work on WOKE: A Young Poets Guide To Justice. Browne is the recipient of numerous literary fellowships and has appeared on BuzzFeed Live, HBO & PBS NEWShour. She is the Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC and the Poetry Coordinator at St. Francis College’s MFA Program. She resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Image © Jeffrey Kay
Find Out More
Published Works:
Breakbeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic by Publication Date: 2018Black Girl Magic continues and deepens the work of the first BreakBeat Poets anthology by focusing on some of the most exciting Black women writing today. This anthology breaks up the myth of hip-hop as a boys' club, and asserts the truth that the cypher is a feminine form.
Woke Baby by Publication Date: 2018Woke babies are up early. Woke babies raise their fists in the air. Woke babies cry out for justice. Woke babies grow up to change the world. This lyrical and empowering book is both a celebration of what it means to be a baby and what it means to be woke. With bright, playful art, Woke Baby is an anthem of hope in a world where the only limit to a skyscraper is more blue.
Black Girl Magic by Publication Date: 2018Black Girl, they say you ain't 'posed to be here Much of what twenty-first century culture tells black girls is not pretty: Don't wear this; don't smile at that. Don't have an opinion; don't dream big. And most of all, don't love yourself. In response to such destructive ideas, Browne challenges the conditioning of society by crafting an anthem of strength and magic undeniable in its bloom for all beautiful Black girls.
Kissing Caskets by Publication Date: 2017Poetry. Like most young black girls growing up in Northern California, Mahogany L. Browne tussles with ideas of femininity & gender roles, addiction & the prison industrial complex, sexuality & seclusion. Inquiries of the living and dying survive on the pages of KISSING CASKETS as the reader is invited to do the self excavation. Each poem is a eulogized celebration of what we lose to the dark when no one is looking.
Watch
- Mahogany L. Browne PBS Newshour Brief but SpectacularPerformance of Black Girl Magic