Jaki Shelton Green is the ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Appointed in 2018, Shelton Green was the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She was reappointed in 2021 for a second term by Governor Roy Cooper. She also serves as a poetry editor for Walter Magazine and is the Poet Laureate in Residence at the North Carolina Museum of Art.