TUP EP 115

Nomination: [00:00:00] I nominate Mahogany L. Brown. First of all, she's legendary. I knew of her. Before I ever got to [00:00:15] know her and as I do now as a friend, as a sister, so I knew her work, which she is one of one. She is genre bending, white poetry, adult fiction. It's her heart that's on the [00:00:30] page. Mo is eternally gracious, patient, insightful.

She has a vision. And she's just bringing people along and beyond. There are so many of us [00:00:45] who can say, we stood on a Lincoln Center stage because of Mahogany. Just a genius on the page and a genius on the stage.

Aransas Savas: Welcome to the Uplifters. I'm your host, Aransas Vis, and today I'm so excited to introduce [00:01:00] you to the incredible Mahogany l Brown, who was nominated for our show by deha.

Phil Shaw Mahogany is an award-winning writer, playwright, organizer, and educator whose work spans poetry, [00:01:15] young adult literature, and. She is the inaugural poet in residence at Lincoln Center and founder of the Woke Baby Book Fair, where she's created spaces where voices like hers and countless others can be heard [00:01:30] and celebrated.

Her books include the award-winning Chrome Valley, the frequently banned woke. A young poet's call to justice. And her novel Chlorine Sky, which I am just so completely smitten by. It's a powerful [00:01:45] exploration of teenage friendship and belonging that follows a protagonist named Sky, navigating the complex territory between being heard and causing hurt with friends like Lily, who you'll meet.

As soon [00:02:00] as we start this conversation. Honestly, I was so energized. Coming off of this book that I just sort of dove right into the conversation anyway, you're gonna love Mahogany. She's gotten a lot of [00:02:15] recognition for her work, but what really makes her extraordinary is her unwavering commitment to leaving the ladder down for others.

This is a conversation about finding your people, trusting your voice, and [00:02:30] understanding that. Service, my friends doesn't have to be selfless to be meaningful. It's about the courage to show up fully in a world that often asks us to play small [00:02:45] and the radical act of creating spaces where everyone else can do the same.

Welcome Maho.

Mahogany Brown: I'm so honored to be in the lineage of folks that you've been able to speak with already, um, [00:03:00] fans of them all. So I feel like, ooh. What a way to come into the day. Thank you.

Aransas Savas: Same. I was reading Chlorine Sky this week and there's so much I wanna talk about in there and there's so much, I just felt so deeply and I listened to another [00:03:15] interview you did in preparation for this, and one of the women talked about your work is feeling like a short film.

And so my daughters and I, we have a practice at dinner of reading a poem every night at dinner. Just sort of feel our way into what that [00:03:30] brings up because otherwise we end up just talking about the tactical every night. Who needs to get dropped off, where, what teacher did what annoying thing. And it just sort of like pushes us out of that.

And so we were talking about it last night and we realized that all of the [00:03:45] art we like best, no matter how brief gives us a full story. I felt like I was living with you in your world, in chlorine sky.

Mahogany Brown: Glad that's the point. Point [00:04:00] is that, I mean, I, if.

That story to be the mirror. Like any of us can be sky, any of us can be lili, right? [00:04:15] Mm-hmm. If we don't just put a name on it and, uh, distance ourselves from the human activity that we've all been aware of and a part of whether we knew it or not.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: It was far easier for me to like, allow folks to [00:04:30] seat.

Yeah, I would never do that. That can't be me. Yeah. So I wanted them to find a way, even if it's just a toehold, whatever, just something to hold onto so they can see it for how I saw it. And then once you [00:04:45] have had that discussion at a dinner or two, you realize everyone was a le. And everyone was a sky.

There are all these instances in our lives growing up, friendships from youth to yesterday. Tell us about [00:05:00] ourselves. Tell us about what we're willing to endure to belong, to be included, to feel love, and what we're willing to do to others to protect that.

Aransas Savas: I'm so grateful that you brought that up because I did just feel like sky.[00:05:15]

Mm. Because that's who I remember feeling like in middle school. But you are right. It's just that the protagonist is where we feel most longing. Mm-hmm. And yet in that longing, we do [00:05:30] become Lily. Sometimes we do. Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: We

Aransas Savas: get

Mahogany Brown: to be Ingrid. We do. We have the capacity for both, right? Yeah. If we're honest, we have the capacity for both.

Even the most loving, kind, generous, have thrown shade, all of [00:05:45] us. That's the part of the human experiences that you have to ebb and flow and who you decide you're gonna be while those experiences are happening, you know, that determines, you know who you'll be remembered as.

Aransas Savas: It's an incredibly generous [00:06:00] perspective too, for you to see the world that way because it doesn't other anyone.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah, I think it took some time to get there. I had a lot of poems that were like, you did this to me. You made me feel this way. You bullied me. And once [00:06:15] I went to like, maybe it was like a high school reunion, 10 years out, and there was this girl from my English class and I'm remembering my life as like sky.

In Sky's position and you know, Lely was like a real friend that was a [00:06:30] real back and forth situation. But in this high school reunion gathering, uh, the girl said, not Lely, no one that's even written in the book, but she was like, you remember that time you made this joke about me and my boyfriend? And, and [00:06:45] it really like, hurt my feelings and it like stuck with me for a long time.

And I do remember the joke. You know what I mean? There you go. The responsibility, right? Yeah. The responsibility of, even if I didn't mean to, I hurt someone's feelings [00:07:00] so that she could be the butt of the joke or her boyfriend was the butt of the joke. So we never know how we show up in other people's worlds, and that was a clear light switch on for me that.

My perspective is also unreliable. Uhhuh, my narration [00:07:15] is also unreliable because I didn't even see, I didn't oscillate and look through the landscape. I just saw what was happening to me. I didn't know that in my attempt to remain remembered [00:07:30] or somebody's bestie or loyal, I hurt this other person. So I wanted to write that book in the sense that you never know.

You can decide who's who, but like you, you're both. Mm-hmm. You are both. And

Aransas Savas: we even see that [00:07:45] in Sky, right? We, there's a moment where she isn't kind to someone else. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And she says, I betrayed myself to be liked.

Mahogany Brown: Yes. She betrayed her personal constitution. How many times have we done that? Even if.

[00:08:00] You can stop someone from making jokes about someone else and you just didn't. Yeah, you didn't get in the way of it. Yeah. I mean, we're doing it now in our world today, if we look at the countries that we're allowing, we're just watching all of these genocides happen and we're like, I'm so sad. No, it's not so [00:08:15] sad.

What happens when you just

Aransas Savas: stand up? Well, it's like people keep saying, now, if you wonder who you would've been, yes, we know who they would've been. Look at who you're being now. Yes, yes. And we sit around right now and we say like, I [00:08:30] don't know. Where's the

Mahogany Brown: threshold? It gets incredibly difficult when you have to be accountable for your decision or inactivity.

'cause that too is a decision. Mm-hmm. It's

Aransas Savas: self-protection, which you show a lot of empathy for and which I really appreciate [00:08:45] because it doesn't say you're off the hook, it just says it understandable because you're a human

Mahogany Brown: right

Aransas Savas: now. Whatcha gonna do with that?

Mahogany Brown: That's it. That's it. You like, that's a synopsis of my life.

Please blurb my life. [00:09:00] Well, whatcha gonna do with it? Whatcha gonna do with it? Yeah. We're here now. So now what? I love it. My grandmother would say that growing up like, okay, you're mad. So now what? What else? Uhhuh. And you can only like, you know, swing your arms to the sky for [00:09:15] so long, or you can only bemoan for so long.

Think of those friends that refuse to leave that partner who just isn't worthy of their time. Every Sunday brunch, they got something to say about 'em. And you get to the point where you're like, you're choosing this. Which one is it?

Aransas Savas: [00:09:30] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there is a point, I'm like doing bicep curls as I say this, that we have to build the muscle.

Ah, yeah. Yeah. Through the complaint, through the frustration, we have to build the muscle [00:09:45] to be brave enough to take action. We have to cry the tears to raise our awareness and our expectation that we deserve better.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: And where's the threshold?

Mahogany Brown: Yeah. There's more work. Like we can't just name it.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: We can't [00:10:00] just name the atrocity. What are we gonna do once we've named it?

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: How do we call it forward? How do we heal? But just naming it is like, it's like a person who wants to go to therapy, but they journal [00:10:15] only. Hmm. One is required, but one works exceptionally well with the other. Poetry is therapeutic.

It has healing properties, and it is not [00:10:30] therapy. You don't have the skillset to undo these things that I've so become accustomed to. I've learned to do to to keep myself alive, to keep myself out harm's way and poems allow me to see it for what it is and to not be gaslit into believing it's [00:10:45] something else.

I love that. But when people say my poetry is therapy, I then think of the therapists that do it for a living and they even have to have therapists, right? Uhhuh. So like it's not just the act of talking and telling. There is an [00:11:00] accountability process that one should have so that they are meeting their own benchmarks.

To better themselves. Otherwise, we become kind of like snake oil distributors where we're like, this is really good. I dunno how it works on [00:11:15] anyone. I just know that wrote it. And you should.

Aransas Savas: So how

Mahogany Brown: do we make sure that we are not only. Healing our, but we aren't pedaling off some idea of healing to people who need two parts of that.

Mm-hmm. There is the, the understanding, there is the [00:11:30] comprehension, there is the, I'm reading this and now I'm talking to someone who can help me put this into play.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: How I differentiate the two is that I'm always aware that one is the call.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm. I [00:11:45] love that. It's just the first step.

Mahogany Brown: Yep, that's right.

Just the first step. It's

Aransas Savas: not the end. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the reason we feel stuck is 'cause we've only taken the first step and then we're like, nothing is changing.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah. I named the thing and it's [00:12:00] like, yeah, you did. You named it with all the tools you had. But that's the thing about skillset.

We build them.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: We learn through learning different languages, how to be compassionate. I know I can't speak Spanish really [00:12:15] fast. I've lived in New York City for 25 years and I did three years of Spanish in high school. That's what I had. So when I go to the Bolga, I know how to order whatever.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: [00:12:30] But if I wanna go live somewhere where that is the predominantly spoken language, I need to immerse myself. The learning of it and not just, you know, happenstance, my, my way around. And I, I feel like that's really comparable to how we [00:12:45] deal with literary arts as healing pego.

Aransas Savas: It's like a woman I interviewed last week talked about the being in the toddlerhood of grief.

Right? I'm in the toddlerhood of Spanish for sure, and [00:13:00] the toddlerhood of grief and a lot of toddlers, and I'm glad like toddlers need toddlerhood to learn how to

Mahogany Brown: really walk right. But for you to acknowledge it means you're open to the learning. I love that. The toddlerhood so good. The toddlerhood,

Aransas Savas: isn't that a good word?

But I also think like, [00:13:15] yes, it's a part of the process and if all we ever learned how to do was. We're gonna feel stuck and victimized. Yep. Yep. Because then we're waiting for it. Like I think you talk about the bad relationship as the example. The relationship is no good. I don't feel [00:13:30] good in this. I don't feel fulfilled.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're just waiting for somebody else to say, let me take you out of this. Let me save you. Mm-hmm. There it is.

Mahogany Brown: There it is. We have to save ourselves. Yeah. Once you name it, you [00:13:45] then have the onus put back on you, and that is scary. I get it. The scariest part is learning. No, I'm an adult. I have to make the rules.

No one is making it for me. This is it. Like no one is [00:14:00] making me go to the dentist. No one's making me do my yearly checkup.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: So the onus becomes on the person who is well aware that they're moving outta toddlerhood.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm. They're like,

Mahogany Brown: I'm trying to grow up, I'm trying to like manage this. But the [00:14:15] mental health issue, what I can, I guess be honest about is, is the scariest part, is that I didn't grow up thinking that therapy was cool, you know, necessary.

I never shy away from it. I've never been like, oh no, not for me. But I also [00:14:30] recognize that it wasn't the thing that we looked towards growing up. If anything, you don't talk at all. Like it'll go away if you're quiet. Mm-hmm. And so I'm from the school of if I write it down, I'm not quiet, and if I share it, [00:14:45] I'm not quiet.

That was great. That was a great start. But again, it still was just the toddler of that awakening, and if I stayed there for too long, then I would never know that I have a DH adhd. Right. I was thinking that [00:15:00] I was just busy, that I was just trying to do it all. No, I, I've been doing 10 things at a time because my a d ADHD will not.

The therapy helped me see it. [00:15:15] Otherwise, I was like running in a circle, a hamster wheel of what did I do wrong? I have to make this right. I have to do this for you so that you know that I'm good. Whole time. I'm disabling myself. I'm putting myself in harm's way. I'm losing sleep. I'm losing weight. I'm [00:15:30] forgetting to take care of myself and go to the doctor.

You know, because I'm so busy trying to do the thing that I thought made me, me. And shout out to poetry. 'cause it showed me the mirror and it gave [00:15:45] me all the, the gems of like, oh, I thought that was cool, but that really was a defense mechanism. That was me trying to shield something Uhhuh that was trying, it's protective.

I was protecting myself. So once I take the [00:16:00] thing that I found out in writing to this therapist, I realize, oh, I've been trying to be the adult since I. Not by by choice, because that's what happens when, you know, you're growing up in a Reagan era, in, [00:16:15] you know, Northern California where drugs have ravaged the neighborhood.

Somebody has to be the boss, and if the adults are disabled, then you gotta show up for yourself or you'll get, you know, you'll get dragged along in the [00:16:30] undertow of it. But I wouldn't have known that. I would've thought it was, I just write these really good stories. Yeah. Not that I am still holding the young girl inside afraid of who I am, if I'm worthy of being celebrated, if I'm worthy of being in a [00:16:45] conversation with the likes of you and the lineage bringers that you had before me.

Like, do I deserve to be here? Because everything around me said that I was going to die or be quiet. Or I'm only good enough if I'm of [00:17:00] service.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: All dead ends.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: All dead ends, because I never got to say who I was.

Aransas Savas: They're all very passive too. Mm. And silence is passive.

Mahogany Brown: Yes.

Aransas Savas: And I grew up raised by my grandmother who lived through the [00:17:15] great Depression and quiet girls were praised and rewarded.

Oh yes. Passiveness was the greatest virtue. And my grandmother is my hero. Mm-hmm. And my heart. Mm-hmm. And I [00:17:30] learned from her that the smaller you played, the more valuable you were. For real. That was

Mahogany Brown: what, why can't you be like her? Quiet, like her demure silent.

Aransas Savas: Wow. My grandmother, every time I [00:17:45] would say, oh, did you see so and so had a baby on Facebook?

She'd say, no. I was like, well, grandma, you could ask them to be your friend. Ask who? You don't ask someone to be [00:18:00] your

Mahogany Brown: friend. Yeah. Wow. How much did you learn from your grandmother? Like My grandmothers are my matriarchs. They make me, and I learned that my service, my desire to be helped. Full comes from [00:18:15] watching them carry everything.

I realized how much they made me, me, how much of my strength comes from watching them. And even the way that I, I come to help others is because they needed help and nobody saw it, but I did. So now I'm gonna help in ways that would [00:18:30] make them proud. I wonder what you learned from Yeah. Besides the, you know, the, the silence, like there's something

Aransas Savas: I learned the power of encouragement.

My grandmother really believed in me. And not like, oh, you're so talented, [00:18:45] but oh, you're worthy. Mm. And being admired by the person you most admire mm-hmm. Is really, I think, the greatest gift we can receive as human [00:19:00] beings. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I mean, I also learned to hate my thighs and to play small.

I learned creativity at any cost. But I mean, those, those are the heirlooms. Yeah, those the heirlooms. [00:19:15] So it's a mixed bag, but it all made me who I am. You know? She, she saved and rescued me when I trace the trajectory of my life back. It is definitely one of those pivot points where. [00:19:30] The life that might have been is much scarier, and that every time I kind of took like a big detour, I'd be like, she's over there.

I need to come back. So definitely the safe place to land, [00:19:45] but our mothers and our communities shape us and it's not just. The mothers we were born from, right? Like I was lucky. I knew my great, great grandmother, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother's my best friend, and now lives with us, my [00:20:00] daughters, right?

Like, so there's that direct lineage, but it's also my aunts. Mm-hmm. And I think about in your book and that moment when she says, why are you playing so small? Mm. Who are you playing small for? [00:20:15] I want that moment for every girl and every woman a thousand times over. And I feel like you like just look at your tv.

You have not played small. You are playing very [00:20:30] big. And so. I wanna know how you got there. I wanna play bigger for that matter. I want us all to get to play bigger.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah, I think I just bet on myself. I just kept betting on me. I refuse [00:20:45] to believe folks when they said I didn't belong or I shouldn't write about this, or I just refused to believe outside of my own body and my own voice.

What I. [00:21:00] Usually if you tell me no, that's when it's a yes. Mm-hmm. Actually, like I'm like, sure, sure, sure. Let me show you that I can write poems and I can have a daughter at 21 and stop [00:21:15] my college career in my sophomore year and still go back, get a degree, get an MFA, earn a doctorate by honorary means like no one thought.

No one thought [00:21:30] that possible. Lincoln Center's inaugural poet in resonance was a gift, but it, it was not the gift that I didn't deserve. I had been working in New York City, creating spaces for other poets, editing other poets on stage, on the [00:21:45] page, carrying babies across the bridge when the, the lights go out in New York, which happens every 10 years or something, silly babies are made those nights too.

The thing that I said I was going to do no matter what. Mm-hmm. And [00:22:00] I wasn't waiting on anyone to say yes or no any longer because when I did, I felt so discouraged. I thought, well, if they can't see it, then it must not be there. Even though I feel it, I feel like I need to write this. I feel like [00:22:15] if I don't write it, then who's gonna write it for me?

Because I know what happens when people write in my image. And are not of me or from where I'm from. I know how flat I can sound.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: How indistinguishable my experiences can be. So [00:22:30] I better write the truth now, write it myself before you know someone speaks for me incorrectly.

Aransas Savas: Yeah, so I'm, I'm like trying to synthesize the lessons in this for myself and the rest of us.

Yeah, [00:22:45] the first one I wrote down was to embrace our moments of opposition. That refusal to believe is a bit of an oppositional response, right? We have to say, no, I'm gonna trust [00:23:00] myself. I wanna reinforce that in my daughters and in myself, that refusal, and yet again, it's been perceived as not being ladylike or good.

And then the second one I wrote down is [00:23:15] importance. Mm. So when you talk about the, the importance of writing your own story, I talk about that as a strong why.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: And that is you believing at your core that your work matters. [00:23:30] And I think that's hard for a lot of people to do, especially if we have editors.

And you are an editor and you have been edited, and you have gotten probably billions of pieces of feedback in the course [00:23:45] of your life. Oh, a lot of it encouraging, a lot of it discouraging, I imagine. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How do you choose what to listen to, to grow and what to say? That's not for me.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah. I love that [00:24:00] I choose to listen to the people who want me to succeed, and you can figure that out very quickly if there's someone who's always finding the worst parts of you.

Not to say that those [00:24:15] parts can't be strengthened. Not to say that you don't have room to grow, but you know when someone is for you and they're telling you something that is constructive versus when someone is just critiquing you for. Just to make you [00:24:30] small or to make themselves sound smart, but it's always to make you small.

Mm-hmm. Because in re in relation, if you are small, they're bigger. I'm giant. I'm good. You're so busy trying to get on my level just to get my approval that that [00:24:45] feeds something here. And that was really the intent of me criticizing you. I didn't want you to be better. Right. So you have to figure out who wants better for me?

Mm-hmm. Where are they in the world? I would do a lot of work in like [00:25:00] communal spaces with peers and I believe in peer critique. I teach it when I'm doing workshops or, or having a class somewhere. I think it's important for you to be in conversation with the folks around you because that is. [00:25:15] And I made it a point that even though we're peers, I can tell by your behavior if I'm someone you care about, if my work is something you care about, or if you're just trying to chop me at the knees to [00:25:30] humble me, to put me in my place, and not everyone has the coof or tact to tell it to you, you know, in a way that allows you to receive it and not, you know.

You power [00:25:45] of it, of, you know, not everybody works with the red edit journalists world, so. I wanna be better. I wanna do right. I wanna do good. I wanna be timeless. I want people to find chlorine Sky. The way I found [00:26:00] Bluest Eye, and by no means is that my bluest eye. I'm working towards that, right? But what Bluest Eye did for me was it allowed me to see myself for the first time in print.

And I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the [00:26:15] moment in the library. Martin Luther King Junior Library in Sacramento, California will never forget. I was hiding out, crying in the stacks, weeping in the stacks because I felt like, oh, I'm not, I'm

Aransas Savas: [00:26:30] here.

Mahogany Brown: I'm not wrong. Wrong is not my name Word to June Jordan, I am not wrong.

So it felt good. It felt home. So what I think we were starting with is how do you [00:26:45] keep the meat and cut the fat and it's just about finding who your people are. Who's in my corner? Who do I read? And I'm like, oh, that's so good. Deisha is one of my favorite reads. Her ability to [00:27:00] write keep joy, like she gets past it all in a way that is so, it's just so, it's beyond smart.

Aransas Savas: You're listening to the people who get what you're doing. Mm-hmm. [00:27:15] And it's almost like, to me, that's a whole other level of this. Yes. To be able to say, oh, that's not my person. And it's not just that they believe in me or that they wanna make me better, but they get what I'm doing instead of giving me feedback for something that I [00:27:30] was never trying to do anyway.

Mahogany Brown: Right. Some people give great notes, they give great edits, and some people are editing. I don't use words like that. Why would you put that in my pay? You know, like, so it's not even [00:27:45] like anti you, it's just they don't have the know-how to talk about or to see what you're trying to do outside of who they are.

In that same canon. They're like, if your poem should be good, get it closer to mine.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: Not if your poem is gonna be [00:28:00] good, make it as whole as it can be. There's a difference. There's a difference. Mm-hmm. So I had to see who that was for myself. I had to know when I'm reading the notes, that this person is not only amazing at what they [00:28:15] do, because I've had the likes of everyone, ocean and Terrance Hayes and Nicole Sealey and all these.

I've, you know, worked with, I have the, the [00:28:30] luck of being able to turn to those folks and say, can, can I bend your ear real quick? And we all have those people. The woman at the bookstore for the last 30 years, she knows some stuff, right? She's read that thing, ask her what she thinks. I knew how to [00:28:45] write poems because my grandmother, when she listened to me, read them, she would either give me her full attention or she would do this, and I'm not playing.

She loved Harlequin romance. Wow. And that's how I got, okay. If I can make her put the book down. Uh, I'm talking to her [00:29:00] Uhhuh, that was one of my first readers. She got 300 Harlequin romance books. If I can peel her attention from that book, I'm on something. I love that

Aransas Savas: as a success metric. Yeah. Like, do I capture [00:29:15] attention in this?

Is it being received or is it just noise?

Mahogany Brown: Yes,

Aransas Savas: because we don't need to add any more noise.

Mahogany Brown: Am I bringing the poet? Am I bringing the poem or am I being the poet? Ooh. So are you telling me a truth or are [00:29:30] you excited that you can hold the truth, so to speak? Like Colleen McIlroy an amazing professor, rest in Peace.

One of her quotes when reading our poems was, are you writing the poem or are you in the [00:29:45] way of the written? And that's a real question we all get to ask ourselves, are you writing the story or are you in the way of the story being written? Are you writing and editing? Because that sounds like you're in the way.

Aransas Savas: Uhhuh, right? Uhhuh? Or are

Mahogany Brown: you just writing it down [00:30:00] and then the edit will happen? And is it ego and fear that most often get in the way of that? I think so. Ego fear what you think should be said. A lot of this isn't good. This is not what I meant. Like, you know, a lot of degradation [00:30:15] on that page. This is not as good as, no one just writes the first banger.

And if they do, it's because they've written a million poems already, right? Mm-hmm. But we're all still in our like, you know, expert yoga hours. You gotta, you gotta [00:30:30] do a couple of hundred of those bad boys to be limber. How are you doing that in your poetry work? How are you doing that in your writing work?

Aransas Savas: How do you feel it when you write something you like? How do I feel? Yeah, I'm sure [00:30:45] have written things. You're like, Hmm, that's so, so what is the difference between the that's not there? And yeah, this is, I

Mahogany Brown: don't

Aransas Savas: think I have it.

Mahogany Brown: I don't

Aransas Savas: uhhuh

Mahogany Brown: all of it is, let's [00:31:00] see how this goes, because I feel like I'm writing at a rate of.

I don't wanna bring up that the Hamilton musical, but when he's writing against Time Uhhuh, I feel like [00:31:15] that's me. I'm writing against time. Folks are, do you sleep? Oh, you put out something every year? Yeah, because I wasn't supposed to be here, you know, and so I don't take any of these opportunities for granted.

I am thankful to have [00:31:30] another day to try and write it right, or at least write it real.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: I'll be okay with that. Do you feel like you're still growing? Absolutely. Yeah. That's the, the funnest part is that I don't feel like I've [00:31:45] mastered anything. If anything, I'm an expert at knowing how to read a room.

I'm intuitive to like what the room requires. I can feel the spark and the crackle, and then that comes from 13 years of hosting at the new Euan. [00:32:00] New York City is not for the faint of hearts and hosting 200 people in a room that it only should be seating 120 and bringing up five to seven poets a.[00:32:15]

And I have to make sure that those 200 people wanna stay there. You gotta know what the room needs. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Someone comes up there with a poem about, you know, losing, you know, their child, a miscarriage, gun [00:32:30] shooting. Someone comes up there about boyfriends being as bad as bagels. Someone comes up there with the importance of grandma's shawl and I have to find the thread that connects all of those human stories [00:32:45] without anyone losing hope for tomorrow.

So that's one thing I got. I know how to do that. I have not mastered the page. Ah, is still reading me and I'm okay with it.

Aransas Savas: Yeah.

Mahogany Brown: If I get another day, how do you [00:33:00] stay true to the stories you need to tell? My favorite way to hear poems is to hear 'em in a room. The sonic editor is extremely helpful. Even my, like my novel form stuff I'm [00:33:15] writing with the pin of a poet, so the language and the music and how it lands matters to me.

I also have a partner who's an amazing reader. Most of my friends are poets or poetry lovers. Which is crazy. That's great. [00:33:30] When I think about it now, I laugh so hard. I'm like, wow, I just pretty vain mo pretty vain. Mm. It's like,

Aransas Savas: oh, it's only club. You've found your people, you found your that, that all we're trying

Mahogany Brown: to do.

That's true. That's true. You're right. You're right. [00:33:45] I'm not mad at it. I'm lucky. I'm lucky in that sense. You're, so, last night I interviewed Aja Monet and Edge Witch Dicot for Ajas book release. And in the back we were just talking and she started [00:34:00] laughing at me and I was like, oh, I'm talking like a poet again, because she's the one that's always like, you talk like a poem.

It's a i, I know. I can't help it. It just, even when I do a breath or a break, it feels like a line break. It's a [00:34:15] lot, but having those be your friends, it's helpful because Nonplused, they, they're like, Hmm, that was cool. Get another mimosa for us. That's great. It's like they've

Aransas Savas: learned the language of the density in your speech.

Yeah. [00:34:30] Yes. That the breath, the pause, the word matters. Yes. And so that density, it's like a humid room, right? That it's like once you're in it, you're like, Hmm, this is fortifying. This is good for my [00:34:45] skin. Come mum, poet, I see what you're doing. I see. But when it's new, it's like, wow, it's overwhelming and I can't breathe in here.

Yeah. Yep. You're constantly creating these spaces for art and community. How much is it [00:35:00] giving you and how much is it giving the people that you are encouraging and supporting?

Mahogany Brown: I would say 50 50. I feel like I get as much out of those experiences as folks get. From the opportunities that those experiences [00:35:15] bring.

Mm-hmm. I feel fed because there is a safe space to share thoughts and ideas, and I remember coming up, I didn't always feel like those spaces existed, especially for, you know, newcomers and up and coming writers. [00:35:30] So I love that feeling of we're creating something. I feel good about coming and sharing and, and learning and growing.

Yeah. There'll be, you know, amazing people there, a lot of heroes, but [00:35:45] you are welcome. You're welcome to be here too, and how good that feels to know that you're welcome to walk in those rooms. I didn't feel that necessarily. I love that

Aransas Savas: answer because I think there is a misconception in our world that service must be selfless.

Mahogany Brown: [00:36:00] Mm-hmm. No, and that's not sustainable. It's not sustainable and it's not fair and it's not uhuh it what I felt like that used to do. That's selflessness. Like just, it's a thankless job. You just do it anyway. That just allowed bad behavior to [00:36:15] continue. That allowed people to think, oh, we don't. When the pandemic proved, who would you be without the arts?

When people had to sit home and look at themselves before therapists were, you know, video ready. [00:36:30] The arts were a large part of people's soothing method. What happens when you no longer have access to it? And so now you don't wanna pay that poet for that haiku that you have now tattooed on your body that has brought [00:36:45] you like, has become a prayer and a mantra for your everydayness.

So as Uplifters,

Aransas Savas: we uplift.

Mahogany Brown: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: What can we do to support you and your work in the world?

Mahogany Brown: Follow me on [00:37:00] Substack. I finally have my own place. I place. Yes. Follow me on Substack. Buy, you know, two books at a time, gifted to someone else and have a book club, read, review it. Have me in conversations with your favorite [00:37:15] readers.

Like I love that. You know, I love the invitation to like really discuss what we're doing and where it's going next and, and how we're in community together, even if we may not have met, because we absolutely must start moving with [00:37:30] like-mindedness in mind. And when I say like-mindedness, I'm not talking about.

Just what makes you happy and what makes me happy. I'm talking about how do we end this oppressive system, make sure that equality and liberation is absolutely available [00:37:45] to us all.

Aransas Savas: I think we get that so directly from your answer to how you keep going. And it is with a strong sense of purpose and belief in the importance.

Mahogany Brown: That's right.

Aransas Savas: And so if we have a shared [00:38:00] belief that it is important, then we have a shared responsibility. Keep it alive.

Mahogany Brown: Mm-hmm. I would even go deeper and say, instead of a shared belief, I would like a shared mission.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: Because the belief [00:38:15] is the idea that it doesn't exist yet. And we exist. We exist and we can, and have fought against these, these terrors before it is in our passiveness that we allowed folks to move for [00:38:30] us.

With, and so now we must come back together.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.

Mahogany Brown: Recalibrate. Mm-hmm. And accelerate.

Aransas Savas: Mm-hmm.[00:38:45]

And your friends, I'm sure would say, Hmm, that's just mahogany.

Mahogany Brown: There she goes.

Aransas Savas: Mahogany being mahogany.

Mahogany Brown: So funny.

Aransas Savas: I am so grateful we crossed paths. Thank you for making time. Thank you. [00:39:00] Thank

Mahogany Brown: you for all you're doing in the world. And congratulations the intergenerational household. We are mirroring each other.

Yeah, so we're lucky. Take time for yourself. Thank you. You

Aransas Savas: too. Mm-hmm. I almost forgot my favorite [00:39:15] question. Okay. And I, who do you wanna nominate for the uplifters? Ooh,

Mahogany Brown: my nomination, I think. Can I do a drummer as well? Yes, please. Mine is. She [00:39:30] writes about the atrocities and the dreams deferred from love torn relationships As a mother, author, curator, anthropologist, and psychologist, she's a cultural worker who remains a beacon of resilience [00:39:45] to us all.

I love how she does not must or fus over genre, which is to say. Our stories belong everywhere. My,

Aransas Savas: my,

Mahogany Brown: my. You gonna love her? You're gonna love her. I'm like, can we talk? [00:40:00] Lets call her now. Three way. Three way phone call. Let's do

Aransas Savas: it.

Mahogany Brown: Hey,

Aransas Savas: party line. Oh. Do you remember the party line? We used to have one. I know.

Yeah. We like shared with the neighbor down the street. Mm-hmm. So [00:40:15] cute. Oh. Yep. Back in the.

Mahogany Brown: 1995. That was a good year. It was. It was. We were, we

Aransas Savas: [00:40:30] were trying to figure some things out

Mahogany Brown: back then. I still had acid washed jeans, you know, I had, yeah, I had a great time in 1995. That was high school, was it? What year did you graduate? 95. January of 95 for the class of 94. I had a, had to go back and finish that [00:40:45] last semester.

Courtesy of my grandmother pulling me by the ear and being

saved. Baby.

Aransas Savas: Well, we have that in common too. Yeah. I moved out my senior year, [00:41:00] went crazy, and then had to come back and finish. So it's like, I know we're here. We're here. We did that. I'm really, really

Mahogany Brown: glad for us. Me too. Well done. Books are lucky because you know we said yes,

Aransas Savas: that's right. [00:41:15]

Mahogany Brown: We're gonna

Aransas Savas: keep saying yes too, and we'll keep learning from each other, period.

Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the [00:41:30] Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation over@theuplifterspodcast.com. Head over to Spotify, apple Podcast, or. Wherever you get your podcast and like, follow and rate our [00:41:45] show, it'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.

Music: Big love painted water sunshine with [00:42:00] Rosemary Ann. Time dwell in the perplexing though you find it faxing. Toss a star in for be around best love for relish in a new prime plant a tree in [00:42:15] springtime dance. With that all hindsight, bring the sun to twilight. Lift you up. Whoa. Lift you up.[00:42:30]

Lift you up. Whoa, lift you up.

Lift you up.

Lift [00:42:45] you.

Lift you up.

Lift you up.[00:43:00]

Beautiful. I cried. Isn't that little thing you did with your voice, right? In the pre-course, right? Uhhuh. I was like, mommy, stop. Mommy, stop crying. You're [00:43:15] disturbing the peace.