A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe

by Mahogany L. Browne. Penguin Random House, March 2025.

Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 Fellow, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Founder of the diverse literature initiative, Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded by Marymount Manhattan College. She serves as the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center. Currently, her short film and poem serving as landmark for Foggy Bottom is showing in the new American Exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky, Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby.

In A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, Browne takes us back to the deepest part of the Covid-19 lockdown. Electra and Hyacinth deliver choruses that contextualize the stories that follow, often using Jamaican Patois in the mix.

In each of the stories, Browne provides voices of teens who are encumbered by every kind of unimaginable personal loss rather than by the politics that depleted most adults. As their families are reshaped through death or abandonment, the teens are thrust into adulthood. They try to find/keep jobs, get through school, find love, or get a pet kitten. Societal injustices that compound human suffering surface to the top of concerns as individual characters work through the truth of their situations.

We respect our elders with open dialogue
We respect ourselves with tough questions and grace
We graceful and grateful
We clumsy humans with piercings
We vaccinated with cartoons on repeat
We chicken noodle soup with a bevvy on the side
We activate our goodwill and share our hand sanitizer
We mask up and keep calm
We are a generous legacy
Just trying to make our ancestors proud
even when our backs are against the wall.
(p. 145)

A Bird in the Air is a slight volume, but its pages are filled with a cohesive collective memory. I took small bites on this one.

What works: Browne hones in on what mattered to many young people who experienced the lockdown in New York City. Ever the poet, she brings back the details, and readers can’t help but remember. In this remembering, readers begin to bond with the characters and build empathy; a nice practice for real life.

While most YA ends with a sense of joy, this one ends with a sense of purpose, a call to action, because it articulates quite clearly that we have not yet healed.