Library Hosts Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green

The Greensboro Public Library will host North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green as the featured guest for the first Saturday Salons at Benjamin, an online event open to both adults and teens at 10 am, Saturday July 3. Jaki Shelton Green will offer a poetry reading, facilitate a discussion about poetics, and respond to writings shared by participants.

“Saturday Salons at Benjamin is a new monthly series that brings our community together around the joy and creativity of poetry,” said Court Duvall, manager at Benjamin Branch. “We have grown as a local hub for poetry meetings and events in recent years, so we are delighted to welcome a renowned poet and teacher to our first event of this new series.”

Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, and 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature.

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. Her publications include: Dead on Arrival, Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues and many more. She is the owner of SistaWRITE, an organizationproviding writing retreats for women writers around the world

Open to adults and teens, participants can register in advance at this website. For more information about Library events and resources visit: www.greensborolibrary.org.