My previous PL post featured our first Piedmont Laureate and current NC Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green.

Today is Jaki Shelton Green’s birthday and Juneteenth.

Happy Birthday to our incredible Poet Laureate! Happy Juneteenth!

I invite you to celebrate both today.

Read, listen, and be inspired to write. (Links to three great articles below.) Support Jaki’s work by purchasing a copy of her newly released record The River Speaks of Thirst.

READ AND LISTEN:

A Poet’s Commemoration of Juneteenth: How North Carolina poet laureate Jaki Shelton Green is marking the day

N.C. Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green Mourns George Floyd with “Oh My Brother”

N.C. Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green’s “The River Speaks of Thirst” Reclaims Stolen Breath

BIO:

Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. When he appointed her in 2018, Governor Cooper stated that “Jaki Shelton Green brings a deep appreciation of our state’s diverse communities to her role as an ambassador of North Carolina literature. Jaki’s appointment is a wonderful new chapter in North Carolina’s rich literary history.”

Her collegiate and professional experiences include currently teaching Documentary Poetry at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, Visiting Professor for the Carlow University MFA Program, Lenoir-Rhyne University Writer-in-Residence, Duke University Teaching for Equity Fellow, 2019 Barnard College Africana Studies Department Lewis-Ezekoye Distinguished Lecturer, 2019 UNC Chapel Hill Sonja Stone Memorial Lecturer, Taller Portobelo Artist Colony Portobelo Panama, University of Panama, Department of Cultural Resources for Brazil, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Distinguished Visiting Writer, North Carolina Turkish Association, Alhambra Cultural Center in Marrakech Morocco, NC Symphony, NC African America Cultural Heritage Commission.

She is the owner of SistaWRITE and co-partner with Dream Yourself Awake and Vertikal Creative Ventures providing writing retreats and travel excursions for women writers in Sedona Arizona, Ocracoke North Carolina, Agadir Morocco, and Tullamore Ireland.