Spring 2021 |Jaki Shelton Green | Vol. 4, Iss. 4
Welcome to The Fight & The Fiddle, a publication of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Each issue gives you a 360-degree view of a Black poet, including an interview, new poems, a critical essay, and a writing prompt inspired by our featured poet.
Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. Her highly lauded work has earned her multiple recognitions, including the 2020 Shaw University Ella Baker Women Who Lead Award, 2020 St. Andrews University Fortner Award, 2020 Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing. In addition she is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and has been named the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Dead on Arrival, Masks, and Conjure Blues. Her poetry has been published in over eighty national and international anthologies and featured in magazines such as Essence and Ms. Magazine. On Juneteenth 2020, she released her first LP, poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, produced by Soul City Sounds and Clearly Records. Jaki Shelton Green is the owner of SistaWRITE providing writing retreats for women writers in Sedona Arizona, Martha’s Vineyard, Ocracoke North Carolina, Northern Morocco, and Tullamore Ireland.
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- The Interview: Jaki Shelton Green talks with editor Lauren K. Alleyne about place, the body and the role of poet laureate.
- Critical Essay: Dr. Jameela Dallis explores Jaki Shelton Green’s poetics of history, remembrance and empowerment in “Jaki Shelton Green’s Poetics of Oyster Knives.”
- Poems: Read “Stillbirth,” “The Communion of White Dresses” and “For the lover who eats my poems...” by Jaki Shelton Green.
- Writing Prompt: What’s the poem in it? Find the poetry in the everyday.