Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green

From the Stella Fosse "Crones to Watch Out For" Series

I find that many women are practicing ancestor worship but passing by those of us who are still here. We must repossess the agency of the Crone. We must not allow others to set it aside.

—Jaki Shelton Green

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Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and the third woman to be named Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Her poetry celebrates the mythmaking South, mourns and honors the life of her daughter, is by turns angry and wickedly funny. She says, "Becoming Poet Laureate is a big deal for a brown girl from Efland, North Carolina. I have sat at tables where my grandmother would have been serving. My ancestors have been in those rooms, but not as guests, and certainly not as celebrity guests. It comes with a responsibility to give back, to nurture."

In her fifties, Green left her job as Director of a non-profit to write and teach writing full time. Initially she was terrified. "I did not know what it meant to be the writer." Over time she published multiple books of poetry, and her work has been featured in translations and videos. She has earned many honors besides her Poet Laureate status, and leads classes that transform the lives of women who want to be creative but are held back by internalized bias. She hosts writing retreats for women in many locations across the United States and in Morocco.

Green focuses on women's responsibility to support one another across generations. "When I was a child, my mother and her friends would take cuttings from one another’s yards. My grandmother grew peonies from cuttings. Once I was in a swimming pool and an older woman recognized me and told me she had a yard full of peonies grown from a cutting from my grandmother’s yard. The question is, what do we as older women have to offer one another? How about a Cronefest, a moveable feast, where we take turns hosting a Sunday brunch? How about one woman could be another’s Blue Apron for two weeks? How about we create our own Crone Currency that we could use with each other?"

Green firmly believes in the agency of the Crone. "What advice do I have for women wanting to pursue creativity after sixty? Get out of your own way. Find out what is stopping you. Who is tying your feet to the ground? What are you afraid of? And what will happen to you if you don’t do it?"

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Crones are using the power and freedom of later life to break barriers and create better lives for people of all ages. Look for more Crones to Watch Out For in this Substack series and in Stella Fosse’s upcoming book, Rock On: Power, Sex and Money after Sixty. Launch date and cover reveal coming soon!

And meanwhile, an advance review from my shero, Joan Price…