Poet Mahogany L. Browne has been selected as the latest recipient of the Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes National Poetry Prize awarded by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University.
The Holmes National Poetry Prize was established in memory of Princeton 1951 alumnus Theodore H. Holmes and is presented each year to a poet of special merit as selected by the faculty of the Program in Creative Writing, which includes writers Katie Farris, Aleksandar Hemon, A.M. Homes, Ilya Kaminsky, Jamil Jan Kochai, Yiyun Li, Patricia Smith, Lloyd Suh, and Kirstin Valdez Quade. The award, currently carrying a prize of $5,000, was first made to Mark Doty in 2011 and has since also been awarded to Franny Choi, Eduardo Corral, Natalie Diaz, Maya Marshall, Hannah Sanghee Park, Matt Rasmussen, Solmaz Sharif, Evie Shockley, and Jenny Xie.
Mahogany L. Browne, recipient of the 2025 Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing. Photo credit: Anthony Artis
Browne, a 2022 Kennedy Center Next 50 Fellow, MacDowell Arts Advocacy Awardee, and New York Emmy nominee for the documentary How to Build a City (All Arts), is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. She has received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, and the Ucross Foundation.
Her books include Vinyl Moon; Chlorine Sky, which was optioned for the stage by Steppenwolf Theatre; Black Girl Magic; and, as she notes, the frequently banned works Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. She is also the founder of the Woke Baby Book Fair, a diverse literary initiative.
Browne’s poetry collection Chrome Valley, highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times, won the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize. She shares that she is especially excited to tour her newest young adult novel, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, which was just longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
Browne holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree from Marymount Manhattan College and serves as the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.
“Mahogany Browne in an unrelenting dervish who refuses to let any aspect of the creative realm go unexplored and unconquered,” said award-winning poet and Professor of Creative Writing Patricia Smith. “She’s a literary and cultural activist and a children’s book author with a voice that calms, encourages and empowers. She pens YA novels focusing on experiences that mirror the lives of colored girls searching for the light of their own voices. And she’s a revelatory poet, consistently finding new ways to celebrate Black lives. She could definitely teach Princeton a thing or two. Nothing like Mo ever was.”
In 2023, Browne was a visiting lecturer in the Princeton Atelier and co-taught the course “How to Find a Missing Black Woman” with Smith and Lecturer in Dance and choreographer Davalois Fearon. They worked with undergraduate students over the course of the spring semester to research and develop an original, multimedia theatrical production that combined spoken word, song, choreography and video to highlight the issue of missing Black women and girls.
“To receive this award, has been divine timing,’ said Browne. “There are many points in a poet’s career when you tap the mic to make sure you’re being heard. With the current climate, my poems feel strained for sunlight and justice. Thank you for this acknowledgement. It is the support many dream of and may never receive. I write for the voices often spoke over or erased completely from the archive. I give thanks for the award and encouragement as I return to the page to honor my ancestors, elders, and kin.”
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Program in Creative Writing and the Lewis Center for the Arts.
