Poetry
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In the absence of justice, a scent.
(for Robert Godwin, Sr.) The scent of an old Black man is aftershave the dry flaking skin of an undergreased scalp maybe, when the weather is warm, the must of an armpit, slightly overripe and sometimes liquor, hard candy, a poor breath-mask of stale mints and sometimes tobacco in the form of mentholated cigarettes or… Continue reading
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Buy a Broadside, Support a Family.
2012 has been a banner year for StaciaLBrown.com. Per-post readership and blog subscriptions have increased exponentially, and feedback from readers has been affirming and overwhelmingly positive. I’d like to thank everyone who regularly or occasionally visits this site for their continued support. I hope what you’ve read here has been encouraging, thought-provoking, inciting, or inspiring… Continue reading
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Me. You. Summer Writing.
Tentative start date on first teen/adult sessions: Monday, June 11 Continue reading
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NaPoWriMo: poems 7-11
i am totally flaking out. i had to catch up, in haiku. and not particularly strong or powerful haiku, either. just… rushed, keep-up-with-the-challenge haiku. so here it is. i should note that these are interconnected. (for d.n.l.) poem 7 – haiku if prison’s a whale and your cell, its belly, be Jonah. wash ashore. poem… Continue reading
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NaPoWriMo: poems 4-6.
poem 4: missions And then I took you to dinner because I was used to paying, every meal an apology for the way you were raised: I’m sorry your father left you. I’m sorry that when he returned, you were already Ellison’s man underground, mind half- Hoovered into oblivion. Love can be retaught. You can… Continue reading
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NaPoWriMo: poems 1-3.
April is, of course, National Poetry Month. Last year I participated in the 30/30 challenge, writing 30 poems in 30 days. I’m trying it again this year, but I decided it on a whim, on the 2nd. So I’m a day behind. Every 3-5 days, I’ll post a digest of the few poems I’ve written… Continue reading
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Sloughing
for Story 1. –And after you, the seep: a bloody comet’s tail, eight weeks, arachnid crawl of clots, the slow retraction of a slackened core. A self unrecognized, a shell awash on foreign shores. 2. Daughter, you have made me something akin to Lot’s wife: forewarned to shuffle off regret, to slough the longing for… Continue reading
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The Pacifist Speaks of Pregnancy.
After hearing about Mother Clifton yesterday, it felt really necessary to attempt another poem. I haven’t written one of my own, since last summer. I didn’t want to write about her, but I did want to write for her, something reminiscent (but hopefully not entirely derivative) of her voice. This is what I finished this… Continue reading
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RIP, Lucille Clifton.
I came home from a day of motherhood prep to find that one of my literary foremothers has passed away. Frequent visitors to this blog may know how connected I feel to Lucille Clifton. I loved her. And it feels like one of my own relatives has left this realm. I hope her spirit is… Continue reading
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In Praise of Lucille Clifton.
I love Lucille Clifton. I have since freshman year of college when my poetry professor, Lori Shpunt, introduced my class to “Homage to My Hips.” While most of my young blackwoman peer group pledges loyalty to Nikki Giovanni (who I’ve never quite adored as much as everyone thinks I should) or Sonia Sanchez (who I’ve… Continue reading
about stacia
Stacia L. Brown was born in Lansing, MI at the very end of the 1970s. She grew up in Baltimore, MD–the county, not the city. She graduated from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in DC with a BA in English and worked a few office gigs, while trying to jump-start her writing career, before moving to New York for grad school.
At 27, she finished an MFA in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. She spent the next six and a half years working as an adjunct writing professor first in Michigan at Grand Valley State, Kuyper College and Grand Rapids Community College, then in Maryland at The Community College of Baltimore County and, for one dazzling semester, at MICA, while also working as a freelance writer for various publications, including The Washington Post, where she currently serves as a weekly contributor, New Republic, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and others.
In 2010, she became a mother.
For a semi-complete list of Stacia’s online publications, visit her bylines page.
Her short story, “Be Longing,” was selected for publication in It’s All Love: Black Writers on Soul Mates, Family, and Friends (Doubleday/Harlem Moon 2009), edited by Marita Golden. Her poem, “Combat,” appears in Reverie: Midwest African American Literature. Her essay on adjuncting as a single mother appears in the Demeter Press title, Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering and the Academy, edited by Sekile Nzinga-Johnson.
Stacia served as the 2013-14 Editorial Fellow for Community Engagement at Colorlines. In June 2015, she was part of the inaugural Thread at Yale class. She was a 2015 participant in Women’s Media Center’s Progressive Women’s Voices training program. She was a 2019 Tin House Scholar and a participant in the Cambridge Writers Workshop in Paris, also in 2019.
In addition to her work in print, Stacia is also an accomplished audio storyteller. In November 2015, Stacia became the creator and producer of Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City, a radio and podcast series that tells intergenerational stories of place and memory in Baltimore City. Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City is part of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)’s 2015 Finding America: Localore project and is produced in partnership with WEAA 88.9.
She is the creator of Hope Chest, a collection of audio essays written to her daughter and present in podcast form at SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts. Hope Chest has been featured on BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts and the Third Coast International Audio Festival podcast, Re:Sound. It was named one of Audible Feast’s Best New Podcasts of 2017. She also created and produces a micro-podcast for middle-grade book reviews, which her daughter narrates and hosts. It’s called Story on Stories.
In 2018, Stacia landed a gig at WAMU, as a producer of the NPR-syndicated daily news program, 1A. In 2020, she relocated from Maryland to North Carolina, where she produced radio and podcasts (including the incomparable Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon) for WUNC, North Carolina’s NPR station before moving onto other sonic endeavors. In 2022, she served as an advice columnist for Slate’s weekly parenting advice column, Care and Feeding.
Stacia resides in Durham with her amazing daughter Story.