Art: Poet Jaki Shelton Green

Green reads her poem, ‘i know the grandmother one had hands.’ Video courtesy of UNC University Libraries, YouTube.

Mebane-based poet Jaki Shelton Green challenges us to think about community legacies, lineage, land, and ancestors in her 2019 poem, 'who will be the messenger of this land.'⁠

Green currently serves as an instructor at The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University—their website includes her bio:

“Jaki Shelton Green is a writer and poet, a North Carolina native whose publications include Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Masks, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, Blue Opal (a play), and Feeding the Light. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Crucible, Obsidian, Essence Magazine, Callaloo, and Black Gold: An Anthology of Black Poetry, among many others. In 2014 the North Carolina native was inducted into the state’s Literary Hall of Fame and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize; in 2009 she served as the NC Piedmont Laureate. “

Furthermore, SistaWRITE is the culmination of a “lifelong dream for Green” in the form of a community initiative to bring women and spaces together for writing, sisterhood, and shared experience.

  • Read more poems by Green here.

  • Learn about Green’s organization SistaWRITE here.

Jaki Shelton Green (Above). Image courtesy of INDY Week.

Jaki Shelton Green (Above). Image courtesy of INDY Week.

ArtEngaging CollectionsNorth Carolina, poetry, Socially engaged art, racial equity, art