Jaki Shelton Green
Jaki Shelton Green was selected as the first NC Piedmont Poet Laureate in 2008 and received the North Carolina Award for Literature in 2003. She is the 2007 recipient of the Sam Ragan Award and a member of the North Caroliniana Society. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Solo Press, The Crucible, The African-American Review, Obsidian, Ms. Magazine, Essence Magazine, KAKALAK, Emigration, Immigration, and Diversity, Callaloo, Black Poets Lean South Anthology published by Cave Canem, the PEDESTAL Poetry Journal and Poets for Peace. Her publications include Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Masks, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, and a play, Blue Opal. In 2005, breath of the song was cited as one of two Best Poetry Books of the Year by the Independent Weekly. She has performed her poetry and taught workshops extensively throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, Central and South America.
Green's poetry has been choreographed by the Chuck Davis African Dance Ensemble in conjunction with the Kennedy Center and the Nasher Museum at Duke University, the Two Near the Edge Dance Company, the ChoreoCollective, the Miami City Ballet and the Danca Nova Dance Company in conjunction with the Colorado Naropa Dance Institute. Green holds a master’s in community economic development from the Development Training Institute, University of Maryland and maintains an independent consultancy specializing in non-profit board training, arts and education, and the humanities. In addition, she continues to teach creative writing to marginalized populations of our society such as the homeless, the newly literate, the incarcerated and the writer-as-survivor. She collaborates as a creativity coach with human service agencies, corporations, and non-profit organizations whose focus is using writing and creativity as tools of healing and transformation. Green's workshops such as “Building Community through Poetry and the Arts” are available through the North Carolina Humanities Council Speaker’s Bureau. She also serves as the spokeswoman for the North Carolina Women’s Health Report Card, Center for Women’s Heath Research at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2006, she was awarded a residency at the Taller Portobelo Artist Colony in historic Portobelo Panama.
