Set Free Poetry brings star power while leveling the field for a wide representation of poets

ARTS & CULTURE

CARRBORO — The second iteration of a new poetry series occurred last Sunday, at Bowbarr in downtown Carrboro. The town is no stranger to the art form. It has a poets’ council that directs poetry programming and town meetings begin with a poetry reading. There’s also the annual West End Poetry Festival.

Set Free Poetry is the brainchild of poet Shannon Jackson and Amanda Barr, artist and co-owner of Bowbarr. The first event was in October, and Jackson intends to hold it every other month until summertime.

They met because their kids grew up and went to school together. One day, Jackson read poetry to her over cocktails, and then Barr kept prodding her to start the series.

“I struggle with putting myself out there with my poetry, which is part of the birth of Set Free,” Jackson confessed over an email exchange. “I want a space for poetry for all those poets who struggle in sharing their voice.”

Many involved in the creative process, including poets, can struggle with nerves, feelings of vulnerability, and even impostor syndrome.

“Bowbarr is an incredible space where artists are supporting and cheerleading artists, in all art forms,” Jackson wrote.

Barr opened her venue 15 years ago with her artist husband John Bowman (JB). She went to the Rhode Island School of Design, and he’s a photographer and drummer. They met in NYC and moved to Carrboro.

“I wanted to show my work and I started Elf Market at the ArtsCenter and went on to start Bowbarr with John.”

The artsy and hipster venue at 705 W Rosemary St, has hosted many group art shows, fundraisers and events, and considers DJ nights and parties to be creative events too.

And now, Set Free Poetry.

Jackson noted that the title plays on Carrboro’s slogan, “Feel Free,” and her love of the songs of a couple of punk poets in Patti Smith’s “Privilege (Set Me Free)” and Lou Reed’s “I’m Set Free.”

When she was 12, a therapist told her that if she couldn’t talk to her to write about it. So Jackson started writing poetry. “I’m sure she was expecting journal-type writing, but when I wrote, it came out as poetry and I have been writing ever since for 36 years.”

She wants the event to be an inspiration to set poetry and the creative self free. To be a space where established and published poets with strong bios are featured, alongside unknown and unpublished poets, plus an open mic.

To wit, North Carolina poet laureate Jaki Shelton Green was the headliner on Sunday. In her email, Jackson described Green as “iconic, my shero, a north star and guiding light as woman, mother, and poet!”

During her preamble, Green remarked that poetry should be in unusual spaces, referring to Bowbarr and how it should be accessible to everyone. She elaborated that the best art doesn’t always live in museums, pointing to the value of everyone being human museums.

Unsurprisingly, she feels this way about her craft, because Green has spent a lifetime as a documentary poet — the idea that poetry is informed by and can inform the memory and experiential recall of moments.

The opposing idea is that poetry can never be evidentiary. For example, film and photography are the mediums we associate with a documentary.

“Documentary poetry uses primary and secondary sources which can be newspaper articles, diaries, letters, archives… anything pretty much that contains a story, a character,” Green explained in a post-reading mini-interview.

She cited how poets often become researchers, historians, weather reporters, and documentarians. A poem doesn’t report that it’s raining but gives us the experience of rain.

“The poet tells us about the squishy-wishyness of running through the mud and the chill trickling down your back.”

The human intimacy of lived moments.

“With documentary poetry, I can lift an obituary, I can lift language from a primary source like a bill of sale and locate it inside the poem.”

Jaki Shelton Green shares her poetry at Bowbarr in Carrboro as she headlines December’s Set Free Poetry. Photos and composite by Pamir Kiciman.

Green is now a two-term state poet laureate, the first African American and third woman to serve in the position.

She’s poised, generous and full of humorous and often pointed stories. She grew up in Efland, near Hillsborough and said, “I’ve had an obsession with the South, being a Southerner. I have a twisted, love-hate, and complicated relationship with the South.”

To which Green bears witness in her poems.

Set Free Poetry is a space for poets of all levels of experience and achievement to feel welcome and share parts of themselves through poems and spoken word.

This equity was in evidence Sunday night.

Jad Khouri, who read first, shared poems in October’s open mic. He writes to heal and pray. Childhood pain, loss, and sobriety are common themes in his poetry.

When it was Luka’s turn, the crowd learned that they brought two poems from their early twenties and one they’d written recently on a night of insomnia. Luka has a small, emotionally charged body of rhyming work.

That fits well with Jackson’s intention to provide a venue for all manner of poets because they are worthy of a space to share their voices.

The relaxed, salon vibe of Set Free Poetry continued in the open mic portion while poets and poetry lovers sampled drinks from the bar expertly mixed by JB and snacks provided by Jackson.

A range of emotions from comedy to tearful grief was displayed, with vulnerability throughout and confessions of nerves, shyness and inexperience. Jackson shared a poem. Lovely moments happened when Green’s husband read a love poem he wrote for her. There were other love poems about the confusion of young love. And powerful statements on abuse and violence.

All under the appreciative attention of Green, who’s a great encourager of poetry, an advocate and organizer for youth poetry and warmly approachable socially. At 71, she’s also a walking fashion statement, her animal-print boots eliciting shoutouts and sporting three extra large and stunning pieces of jewelry with quartz and turquoise

While Set Free Poetry is still finding its shape (perhaps it’s shapeless), look out for announcements of a January date because the evening proved to be connecting, affirming, and rich.

Pamir Kiciman is an artist who writes about a range of the arts and the creative process. He can be reached at info@thelocalreporter.press