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Jaki Shelton Green
Our first trailblazer highlight is the first African American to be named North Carolina’s Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green. The North Carolina native uses music as her ultimate muse, melding the moods of jazz, soul, and rock in her writing. An editorial review of her book Conjure Blues: poems remarked her writing as “a dance that has its own music.” Jaki’s work as a creative writer intersects her activism, as an advocate for community needs via facilitation of public community arts programs that support various underserved populations. Her love of community led her to create SistaWRITE, a female writing collective whose retreats have been a transformative tool for many women around the country and the world. Among the many honors that Green has received during her 40-year career, some of the most notable are the Sam Ragan Award for Contributions to the Fine Arts of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state’s highest civilian honor. Green currently teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, and released her first recording album The River Speaks of Thirst on Juneteenth, 2020.
To learn more about Jaki Shelton Green and her work, visit her website at jakisheltongreen.com.
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