North Carolina Poet Laureate
In today’s episode, North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green reads a number of her poems, discusses her work as Poet Laureate and shares her love of writing poetry.
Charlotte Readers Podcast is sponsored by Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.
In today’s episode, North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green reads a number of her poems, discusses her work as Poet Laureate and shares her love of writing poetry.
Jaki is the first African American to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. When Governor Roy Cooper appointed her in 2018, he said that Jaki “brings a deep appreciation of our state’s diverse communities to her role as an ambassador of North Carolina literature.”
Jaki starts the show reading her poem “i know the grandmother one had hands,” which she wrote when leading a series of writing workshops for women on Death Row, where the exercise was to write about the power of hands.