Singing a Tree into Dance: Furious Flower Presents Jaki Shelton Green
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My journey to literature, to the literary arts, has always been about my own obsession with writing, obsession with telling story and finding the poetry that lives inside story.
On the afternoon of March 14, as part of its mission to celebrate Black poetry and poets, Furious Flower welcomed Jaki Shelton Green as the second featured poet of the Spring 2019 Reading Series. The renowned writer and poet, is a North Carolina native whose publications include Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Masks, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, Blue Opal (a play), and Feeding the Light. The third woman and first African-American to hold the position, Shelton Green serves as North Carolina’s ninth poet laureate, and has taught poetry and creative writing at libraries, educational institutions, schools, and literary organizations. She creates and facilitates programs that are meant to uplift the voices of diverse and disenfranchised individuals, the most notable of which is her organization SistaWRITE.
Executive Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, Dr. Joanne Gabbin introduced Shelton Green, and the warmth of Dr. Gabbin’s love for her friend of more than 20 years radiated through the audience as she introduced not only a poet, but a woman, mother, and wife. Their palpable friendship nurtured an atmosphere of connection, admiration, and a genuine desire to listen. The afternoon sun flooded through the windows of Duke Hall Gallery Court as Jaki Shelton Green took the microphone and read her poetry.
I was overtaken by the splendor and the beauty of Shelton Green’s words and captivated by the natural imagery that permeated the very essence of her writing. Her poetry is marked by sublime southern landscapes and the weary sorrow of a Black woman reconciling loss, a history of injustice, and an unknowable future. The captivating hour passed and Shelton Green stepped away from the podium to answer questions. Enthralled by the language that recurred throughout her reading, I asked Shelton Green when and why she found herself drawn to certain natural images. She responded that the imagery in her poetry is the, “[i]magery in her DNA. Bones at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, what happened in these old southern landscapes.” In this way, Shelton Green confronts her audiences with the historical ramifications of the ocean and the earth for Black bodies.
Later, in the ensuing discussion, Shelton Green invited us to consider, “what bones are beneath the ground we walk on,” as students at James Madison University. On a larger scale she also asks us to consider the ground we walk on as people navigating a southern landscape and what it may mean to a people whose history is inextricable from the branches of its tall, ancient trees and the depths of its darkest waters.
In her poem “who will be the messenger of this land,”Shelton Green raises her own question; “who will be the messenger of this land / count its veins / speak through the veins / translate the language of water.” In answer, she posits herself as the writer whose duty it is to herself translate the language of the landscape of North Carolina, the earth that runs deep and strong through the veins of her spirit and her poetry:
who will remember
to unbury the unborn seeds
that arrived
in captivity
shackled, folded,
bent, layered in its
bowels
But Jaki Shelton Green also made it clear that to dwell exclusively on her identity as African-American is to miss the point of her work. In response to another audience member in regards to how important it is to understand Black history and culture to truly interpret her poems, Shelton Green said; “If I write a poem that only Black women understand, I feel like I haven’t done my job.” Shelton Green, in her writing, tries to discern the quintessentially human and connect through a shared experience of being. She seeks and documents the voices of those who have been silenced and give them new life in words that demand witness.
And with “much tender wonderment,” I say thank you to Jaki Shelton Green and Furious Flower Poetry Center.
By Jessica Carter
