Appalachian State University's Reich College of Education (RCOE) will be hosting Jaki Shelton Green, NC Poet Laureate, Friday, April 26. She will present on "Building and Exploring Our Human Museums."
Jaki will be giving two presentations. The events will be held at 2:00 pm in the Plemmons Student Union room 417 (Beacon Heights) and at the RCOE at 5:30 pm in room 124A (Gathering Hall). Light refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public.
Parking for the 5:30 pm session is free anywhere after 5:00 pm. The closest available lot is the library parking deck.
For more information contact Trisha Caviness-Bliss
Overview of Human Museum Creativity Salon
We are all human museums carrying/holding/translating/secrets/identities/family/community/traditions/artifacts/stories/symbols/joys/sorrows/fears/regrets/hopes/dreams/memories/amnesia/weapons/generational trauma/genetic de-ja-vu.
As you think of yourself as your own curator or personal anthropologist...what is in your human museum? What are the rooms, spaces, containers you create for the telling, for the keeping, for the knowing, for your stories, your creativity, and for your validations as a writer?
Participants will experience their writing instruments (pens, computers) becoming powerful excavation tools unearthing new creative texts or buried inspiration. This deep engagement will provide a significant opportunity to truly understand why we all should understand and manifest the need to be the curators of our own lives; hence the curators and guides for harvesting our creative lives.
About Jaki Shelton Green
Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. When Governor Cooper appointed her in 2018, he stated, "Jaki Shelton Green brings a deep appreciation of our state's diverse communities to her role as an ambassador of North Carolina literature. Jaki's appointment is a wonderful new chapter in North Carolina's rich literary history."
Her collegiate and professional experiences include:
- currently teaching Documentary Poetry at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies
- Visiting Professor for the Carlow University MFA Program
- Lenoir-Rhyne University Writer-in-Residence
- Duke University Teaching for Equity Fellow
- Taller Portobelo Artist Colony in Portobelo Panama
- The University of Panama
- Department of Cultural Resources for Brazil
- North Carolina Turkish Association
- Alhambra Cultural Center in Marrakech Morocco
- NC Symphony
- NC African America Cultural Heritage Commission
She is the owner of SistaWRITE and co-partner with Dream Yourself Awake and Vertikal Creative Ventures providing writing retreats and travel excursions for women writers in Sedona Arizona, Ocracoke North Carolina, Agadir Morocco, and Tullamore Ireland.
Jaki Shelton Green is the author of eight collections of poetry: Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Masks, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, published by Carolina Wren Press and Blair Publishers. Her other publications; Feeding the Light, I Want to Undie You are published by Jacar Press. Her poetry has been published in over eighty national and international anthologies and featured in magazines such as Essence and Ms. Magazine.
Headshot of Jaki Shelton Green
