Mahogany L. Browne's Redbone was recently nominated for the NAACP Image Award in poetry.
An Interview with Mahogany L. Browne
Up the Staircase Quarterly: Your latest book, Redbone (Willow Books) just came out in the fall of 2015. Please share a little bit of history about the inner-workings of Redbone. Which people and/or ideas inspired you to write these poems? Was it a long-term project that spanned several years, or did it come together more quickly?
Mahogany L. Browne: Redbone is an investigation on how I learned to love. I personify my mother and father’s voices and traverse through snapshots of their memories (whether shared in conversation or as family myth) and from that...this 3 year old project became Redbone.
My mother was nicknamed "Redbone" because of her light skin, freckles and red hair. I thought it was fitting when I realized how much of her survival, whether I witnessed it first hand or not, was the foundation for the woman I am today.
UtSQ: Redbone is shaped not only by narrative, but also by giving the characters a voice to tell their own stories. Several of the poems about Redbone are written in the third person, but my personal favorites were the poems in which she told a story in the first person:
He say my name like it’s his favorite word like
a man in love with the way I sound on his tongue,
for a minute I forget all of it. I forget about Rita
and the son she promised him, the kitchen
table with the matching white chairs and them
snapping peas—I swear I can only feel the earth
moving underneath us. Even after I climb into
the car and roll the window all the way down,
my arm stinging bright with his fingerprints on top.
(from “Redbone on Snapping Peas”)
The intimacy and immediacy of these poems such as “Redbone on Snapping Peas,” “Redbone & Box Wine,” and “Redbone on Fighting” have stayed with me. Can you share with us a little about your choices in executing a poem in third person vs. first person? What influence or impact has the storytelling of others brought to your writing?
MLB: I workshopped a lot of these poems with Cave Canem alum, faculty, and pillars: Corneilus Eady, Terrance Hayes, John Murillo, Evie Shockley, and Patricia Smith. So, I was aware when the story wasn’t working, or was being dragged down. I had to learn how to give the poem what it needed. Sometimes it was space, breath, pauses...Sometimes it was air and absence. There are at least 20 poems that didn’t make it into the manuscript because, while they were the truth -- they took away from the picture as a whole.
Mahogany L. Browne: Redbone is an investigation on how I learned to love. I personify my mother and father’s voices and traverse through snapshots of their memories (whether shared in conversation or as family myth) and from that...this 3 year old project became Redbone.
My mother was nicknamed "Redbone" because of her light skin, freckles and red hair. I thought it was fitting when I realized how much of her survival, whether I witnessed it first hand or not, was the foundation for the woman I am today.
UtSQ: Redbone is shaped not only by narrative, but also by giving the characters a voice to tell their own stories. Several of the poems about Redbone are written in the third person, but my personal favorites were the poems in which she told a story in the first person:
He say my name like it’s his favorite word like
a man in love with the way I sound on his tongue,
for a minute I forget all of it. I forget about Rita
and the son she promised him, the kitchen
table with the matching white chairs and them
snapping peas—I swear I can only feel the earth
moving underneath us. Even after I climb into
the car and roll the window all the way down,
my arm stinging bright with his fingerprints on top.
(from “Redbone on Snapping Peas”)
The intimacy and immediacy of these poems such as “Redbone on Snapping Peas,” “Redbone & Box Wine,” and “Redbone on Fighting” have stayed with me. Can you share with us a little about your choices in executing a poem in third person vs. first person? What influence or impact has the storytelling of others brought to your writing?
MLB: I workshopped a lot of these poems with Cave Canem alum, faculty, and pillars: Corneilus Eady, Terrance Hayes, John Murillo, Evie Shockley, and Patricia Smith. So, I was aware when the story wasn’t working, or was being dragged down. I had to learn how to give the poem what it needed. Sometimes it was space, breath, pauses...Sometimes it was air and absence. There are at least 20 poems that didn’t make it into the manuscript because, while they were the truth -- they took away from the picture as a whole.
lUtSQ: The center of this book revolves around the story of Redbone, Bam, and Rita. However, there are also small poems that interject into the main protagonists’ storyline. These “interjections” enhance the overall story’s power and place their finger on the pulse of family and community: Betty, from “Betty Sez,” the great aunt who “interjects” to share her own stories, and the “Church Heat” poems that depict community in a religious setting. What led you to include these auxiliary poems? Along with interpreting the complexities and value of community, what truths are communicated?
MLB: These poems felt very much like a part of the story to me, as they were able to shine light on how each body responds to nurturing. Betty Sez is a prime example of the matriarch teaching women how to handle (or so they thought) an abusive relationship. Church Heat is about how we were taught to sit and look and be on display, despite what we may have seen or heard at home. All of these moments felt necessary to share. How I love, how I turn to the light, how I turn away from the stares -- all were informed from the women in my life. How I write, the fear of the invited scrutiny, made their testimonies important to my knowing.
UtSQ: You begin Redbone with a quotation from Al Green: “Something that can make you do wrong/Make you do right”. After reading the poem “Redbone & Al Green”, where Redbone describes his song “Love and Happiness” as sung by “man with a hole in his heart”, I was driven to go and listen. What role does “Love and Happiness” play in the tone of your book? How does the message of Green’s quote relate to Redbone?
MLB: Al Green was always on the record player. At least that’s how it felt. And every time I remembered a memory...I remembered his voice swimming in the air. I think it’s important to have a soundtrack. Every moment of my life is surrounded by music. Even if it’s the hum of a refrigerator; the hiss of a radiator; the breaking of a glass pipe; the sound of a fist against skin.
UtSQ: I must reminisce a little. You published a poem with us, “stratigrapher”, back in 2009. I’ve revisited this poem a few times over the past month and its clarity and strength still resonate. However, there is also a marked difference from this poem to the work in Redbone. How do you feel your work has evolved over the years?
MLB: Man...I remember that poem. And I remember UtSQ being one of the first to publish me. My work has become a little more experimental. I used to think I needed to explain every single line. I thought each metaphor has to grow itself legs and walk about town. I know now the memory is the poem. The simple moments of life that we rarely acknowledge are poetic. And there is room for it all.
UtSQ: What was your first significant literary encounter? How did this experience inspire you, or shape you, into the writer you have become?
MLB: I have a couple. Once I was on stage in Poland and a woman came to me after my performance and said “I don’t know everything you said, but I feel it here.” We had an interpreter, but she took the time to say that to me. The other would be a Cave Canem workshop where the facilitator said something like: Don’t be bound by form. Learn it then break it. Keep your tongue yours... And that was it. The permission to learn a form and use as I chose or not. To (re)create form, like my sister Amanda Johnston...She learned the contrapuntal then recreated form and introduced to the world the Genesis. The Genesis is a 5 column poem. Each column is its own poem, the 6th poem is columns 1-5 read left to right, and the 7th poem is an erasure (usually bolded words within the columns' text). Before meeting women like her, those daring the page to blink -- I reckon I would’ve believed that poems can only be ONE way. Especially with how much division comes when discussing performance poetry and “page” poetry. For me there is no difference. My poems exist on the page and I happen to perform them well on stage.
UtSQ: What is next for you? Any forthcoming projects, publications, or events?
MLB: I’m currently working on my second collection Chrome Valley, which includes the chapbook released by Button Poetry, Smudge. And I’m working on my first young adult novel. I have a fellowship with Air Serenbe in Georgia which allows me to focus on my writing for a month long residency, and I am excited to co-produce the Brooklyn Poetry Slam with Jive Poetic.
UtSQ: Finally, Mahogany, if you could have a meal with anyone, dead or alive, real or imaginary, whom would it be, what would you talk about, and what on earth would the two of you eat?
MLB: And just like that -- I have to break the rules. I can see a dining table of 6. The invited parties would be Lucille Clifton, Octavia Butler, Ai, Nina Simone, Eartha Kitt, and myself. We’d have brick chicken with loads of garlic. And whiskey everywhere.
About Mahogany L. Browne~
The Cave Canem and Poets House alum is the author of several books including Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics. Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada's The Word and UK's MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Manhattanville Review, Muzzle, Union Station Mag, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary, Joint & The Feminist Wire. She is the author of several poetry collections including: Smudge (Button Poetry), Redbone (Willow Books) & is a part of the groundbreaking anthology The Break Beat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket). She is an Urban Word NYC Poet-in-Residence (as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices), founder of Women Writers of Color Reading Room (housed on Pratt Institute) and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. Browne is also the publisher of Penmanship Books, the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program Director and Friday Night Slam curator and currently a 2nd year MFA Candidate for Writing & Activism at Pratt Institute.
MLB: These poems felt very much like a part of the story to me, as they were able to shine light on how each body responds to nurturing. Betty Sez is a prime example of the matriarch teaching women how to handle (or so they thought) an abusive relationship. Church Heat is about how we were taught to sit and look and be on display, despite what we may have seen or heard at home. All of these moments felt necessary to share. How I love, how I turn to the light, how I turn away from the stares -- all were informed from the women in my life. How I write, the fear of the invited scrutiny, made their testimonies important to my knowing.
UtSQ: You begin Redbone with a quotation from Al Green: “Something that can make you do wrong/Make you do right”. After reading the poem “Redbone & Al Green”, where Redbone describes his song “Love and Happiness” as sung by “man with a hole in his heart”, I was driven to go and listen. What role does “Love and Happiness” play in the tone of your book? How does the message of Green’s quote relate to Redbone?
MLB: Al Green was always on the record player. At least that’s how it felt. And every time I remembered a memory...I remembered his voice swimming in the air. I think it’s important to have a soundtrack. Every moment of my life is surrounded by music. Even if it’s the hum of a refrigerator; the hiss of a radiator; the breaking of a glass pipe; the sound of a fist against skin.
UtSQ: I must reminisce a little. You published a poem with us, “stratigrapher”, back in 2009. I’ve revisited this poem a few times over the past month and its clarity and strength still resonate. However, there is also a marked difference from this poem to the work in Redbone. How do you feel your work has evolved over the years?
MLB: Man...I remember that poem. And I remember UtSQ being one of the first to publish me. My work has become a little more experimental. I used to think I needed to explain every single line. I thought each metaphor has to grow itself legs and walk about town. I know now the memory is the poem. The simple moments of life that we rarely acknowledge are poetic. And there is room for it all.
UtSQ: What was your first significant literary encounter? How did this experience inspire you, or shape you, into the writer you have become?
MLB: I have a couple. Once I was on stage in Poland and a woman came to me after my performance and said “I don’t know everything you said, but I feel it here.” We had an interpreter, but she took the time to say that to me. The other would be a Cave Canem workshop where the facilitator said something like: Don’t be bound by form. Learn it then break it. Keep your tongue yours... And that was it. The permission to learn a form and use as I chose or not. To (re)create form, like my sister Amanda Johnston...She learned the contrapuntal then recreated form and introduced to the world the Genesis. The Genesis is a 5 column poem. Each column is its own poem, the 6th poem is columns 1-5 read left to right, and the 7th poem is an erasure (usually bolded words within the columns' text). Before meeting women like her, those daring the page to blink -- I reckon I would’ve believed that poems can only be ONE way. Especially with how much division comes when discussing performance poetry and “page” poetry. For me there is no difference. My poems exist on the page and I happen to perform them well on stage.
UtSQ: What is next for you? Any forthcoming projects, publications, or events?
MLB: I’m currently working on my second collection Chrome Valley, which includes the chapbook released by Button Poetry, Smudge. And I’m working on my first young adult novel. I have a fellowship with Air Serenbe in Georgia which allows me to focus on my writing for a month long residency, and I am excited to co-produce the Brooklyn Poetry Slam with Jive Poetic.
UtSQ: Finally, Mahogany, if you could have a meal with anyone, dead or alive, real or imaginary, whom would it be, what would you talk about, and what on earth would the two of you eat?
MLB: And just like that -- I have to break the rules. I can see a dining table of 6. The invited parties would be Lucille Clifton, Octavia Butler, Ai, Nina Simone, Eartha Kitt, and myself. We’d have brick chicken with loads of garlic. And whiskey everywhere.
About Mahogany L. Browne~
The Cave Canem and Poets House alum is the author of several books including Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics. Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada's The Word and UK's MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Manhattanville Review, Muzzle, Union Station Mag, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary, Joint & The Feminist Wire. She is the author of several poetry collections including: Smudge (Button Poetry), Redbone (Willow Books) & is a part of the groundbreaking anthology The Break Beat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket). She is an Urban Word NYC Poet-in-Residence (as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices), founder of Women Writers of Color Reading Room (housed on Pratt Institute) and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. Browne is also the publisher of Penmanship Books, the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program Director and Friday Night Slam curator and currently a 2nd year MFA Candidate for Writing & Activism at Pratt Institute.
