Calendar of Events

Poetry in the Garden: Danez Smith, Mahogany L. Browne

Declarations 2025 - Black Voices

July 28, 2025 · 7 p.m.
Walled Garden
Free

Commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with "Poetry in the Garden: Declarations 2025." Each Monday evening in July, nationally acclaimed poets will share works that explore how historically marginalized groups have been denied the Declaration of Independence's promise of equality and inalienable rights.

On July 28, “Poetry in the Garden: Declarations 2025” is proud to host two poets whose work stands defiant of racism, both historic and reawakened: Danez Smith —a National Book Award winner—and Mahogany L. Browne, poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center. A commissioned musical performance of poetry by U.S. Poet Laureate Emerita Tracy K. Smith will also be performed. A Q&A session and book signing will follow.

Free for all! Bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the readings, held in KTM&HC’s beautiful walled garden. A Q&A session will follow each reading; poets’ books will be available for signing. In the event of inclement weather, the reading will move inside the Garden House.

Danez Smith is the author of Bluff, Don’t Call Us Dead, and Homie. They are also the curator of Blues In Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes. Smith has won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and has been a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. The recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and residencies—a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Princeton Arts Fellowship among them—Smith teaches at the Randolph College MFA program.

Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow and inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center, is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. Her most recent poetry collection, Chrome Valley: Poems, was highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times and is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. Browne has received fellowships from Arts for Justice, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, and others. In addition to three young-adult novels-in-verse, she authored the banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby.

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