Rocky Mount, NC: Mt.Zion First Baptist Church Hosts Poet Laureate of NC

Yes, Jaki Shelton Green is this beautiful. She is North Carolina’s 9th poet laureate. You’v heard someone say, he or she could read the telephone directory and make it sound good; that’s the melodious voice of Mrs. Green.

I closed my eyes listening to her read a few of her poems, and heard a voice filled with dignity, a clarity of her black experience without using a ‘street smart’ language to demonstrate that she is black.

One of the things I think our journey entails is learning how to appropriate the good and the bad that we experience so that we come to recognize ‘all of it’ has made us who we have become and we are thankful for everything. This is what I recognized in Mrs. Green. She has obviously learned to use the words that express her story with reverence and meaning. To say that she is inspiring is not enough.

Pastor Neimah Smith and Mrs. Green sat in wing back chairs at the front of the sanctuary in comfortable companionship. Those of us in the pews were blessed by her wisdom forged as a black child growing up in the south. Pastor Smith is perfect in this role of orchestrating upcoming cultural events held at the church and offered for the community. There are wonderful welcoming members to enrich the experience.

Jaki Shelton Green is a reasoned, articulate born teacher who gives language to people that help them name their experiences, be they women inmates in prison, children, or students at Duke University where she teaches.

She says, “My role as Poet Laureate is to be present in many different types of communities and to foster an appreciation for voices that are marginalized. North Carolina has rich diversity of community and there are amazing stories that I want to help people excavate and tell and write and celebrate.”

If you google information about the North Carolina Poet Laureate you will find this information, which I can provide here.

Mrs. Green advocates for the power of poetry and the written word to illuminate, educate, entertain and transform the minds and hearts of people of all ages and from all walks of life. The laureate acts as an ambassador for North Carolina literature and literacy, using the office as a platform from which to highlight not only his or her own work, but also the work of other writers in our state. The standard appointment is for a two-year term, but this can be extended at the discretion of the Governor. The poet laureate shapes the position based on his or her own strengths through a long-term project or program of special interest. However, all poets laureate share the following duties: travel across North Carolina to engage writers and readers of all ages in a variety of settings including schools, libraries, and community centers; communication with the press; and writing commemorative poems for historical or culturally important occasions.

The North Carolina Arts Council supports the poet laureate by coordinating and publicizing speaking events, and typically provides a stipend to defray some of the laureate’s travel and expenses.

Mrs. Green is the first African American and the third woman to serve as the state’s ambassador for poetry and the spoken word. She was first appointed North Carolina Poet Laureate in 2018. Governor Roy Cooper reappointed her in May 2021.

For a while the writing conferences I attended asked a poet to speak over lunch. Poetry got so obscure it made no sense. This is not the poetry of Mrs. Green. What I have selected to add is because I love Duke’s Mayonnaise. I picked these first few lines of a poem named PaperDolls from her ‘Breath of the Song’ collection.

Thank you, Mt.Zion First Baptist Church for hosting this event.

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