Piedmont's poet laurete performs at Mama Dip's

Verses about fried chicken, gravy corn and cinnamon apples wafted over diners as “Mama Dip” Mildred Council watched her patrons taste three courses of poetry and country cooking.

Thursday’s Piedmont Laureate Word Tasting featured readings by the 2009 Piedmont Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green. She spoke over breakfast at Starbucks Coffee in Raleigh, lunch at Piedmont restaurant in Durham and dinner at Mama Dip’s in Chapel Hill.

“The idea was a progressive meal, but in a three-county area,” said Martha Shannon, arts coordinator of the Orange County Arts Commission. “Its a way to showcase the laureate. And everyone loves to eat.”

The Word Tasting was hosted by the Piedmont Laureate program, an organization that aims to promote the awareness and appreciation of literary arts in central N.C.

The program is sponsored by the Orange County Arts Commission, City of Raleigh Arts Commission, Durham Arts Council, and the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County.

Next year the Alamance County Arts Council and the Johnston County Arts Council will be joining.

As Piedmont Laureate, Green has traveled to poetry readings throughout the area, participated in writing festivals and worked to increase awareness of the arts and humanities.

“I work with marginalized writers: the disenfranchised, homeless, those who use writing as therapy, the newly literate, and children,” Green said.

Memory and storytelling are important themes in Green’s work. Her poetry often describes her experience as a black growing up in the rural South.

Green’s fascination with poetry and reading began at a young age.

“I was inspired by conversations on the front porch, by eavesdropping on adults talking,” she said.

“Sunday morning at church was one huge poem. It’s all art.”

Green’s poetry has attracted acclaim. She said she received a letter from “the cutie-pie of D.C.,” President Barack Obama, praising her poem, “who will be the messenger of this land.”

“Her poems came from the earth, from the heart,” said Mary Andrews, a Chapel Hill resident, at the word tasting.

The restaurant was filled Thursday. Some had come specifically to hear Green, and others heard for the first time.

Council said she enjoyed Green’s reading.

“I read a lot. I like funny poems,” Council said.



Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.