Wilson, N.C. – Barton College will welcome poet Jaki Shelton Green as the featured speaker for the annual Joyce T. Boone Southern Authors Series. The lecture will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 22, in The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center at 7:30 p.m. The program is open to the public at no charge, and the community is invited to attend.
Green was selected as the first North Carolina Piedmont Poet Laureate in 2008. She received the Sam Ragan Award in 2007 and the North Carolina Award for Literature in 2003.
Her publications include “breath of the song” (2005), “singing a tree into dance” (2003), “Conjure Blues” (1996), “Dead on Arrival and New Poems” (1996), and a play, Blue Opal. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as “The Crucible,” “The African American Review,” “Ms. Magazine,” “Callaloo,” “Obsidian,” and in “Poets for Peace” and “Black Poets Lean South Anthology.”
Green’s poetry has been choreographed by the Chuck Davis African Dance Ensemble in conjunction with the Kennedy Center and Duke University’s Nasher Museum as well as by Danca Nova Dance Company. She has performed her poetry and led workshops throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Central and South America.
Collaborating with human service and non-profit organizations, Green teaches creative writing to marginalized populations such as the incarcerated, the newly literate, the writer-as-survivor, and the homeless. She lives in Mebane.
The Joyce T. Boone Endowed Lectureship for Southern Authors was established in memory of the late Joyce Thornton Boone by her husband, Doug Boone. This endowed lectureship supports special programs featuring visiting Southern writers.
Boone graduated from Atlantic Christian College with degrees in business administration (1978) and nursing (1988). An enthusiastic advocate for students and alumni of Barton College, Boone believed in the mission of the small, private, liberal arts college. She served on both the Barton College Board of Trustees and the Barton Alumni Council. Boone was president-elect of the Barton College Alumni Council when she passed away in October 2004.
For additional information about this program, please contact Dr. Rebecca Godwin, professor of English and director of The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center, at 252-399-6364 or email: rlgodwin@barton.edu.
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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.