Jaki Shelton Green will offer a poetry reading, share her journey to the poet laureateship, and her work with youth engagement.

Shelton Green is the ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina, first appointed in 2018 and reappointed in 2021 for a second term by Governor Roy Cooper. She is the first African American and third woman to serve as North Carolina Poet Laureate. She was appointed as the first poet in residence of the North Carolina Museum of Art for 2022-23.

Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Her publications include Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues and many more. On Juneteenth 2020, she released her first poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, and followed it with I Want to Undie You in 2021.