YUNYI DAI / NEXTGENRADIO
What is the meaning of
home?
Jeffrey Kelly speaks with Salaam Green, Birmingham’s inaugural poet laureate, who believes in the healing power of writing. In her new chapbook, Once Upon A Magic City, along with her other work, Green explores her home in poetry and Birmingham. Green hopes that through poetry, readers can find their own homes.
Birmingham’s poet laureate writes her homecoming
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Salaam Green
(Sound of birds chirping in Railroad Park)
Well, I like to say that I’m kind of a— I have a rural girl’s heart in an urban city.
My name is Salem Green and I am the first poet laureate of the city of Birmingham.
So I’ve been in Birmingham, I don’t know, since 1999. So, for decades, I’ve been here in Birmingham, and I am originally from a little town in— called Greensboro, Alabama. So that’s where my rural girl’s heart kind of just lies.
But when I think of home, I think of my grandmother’s cooking the way the kitchen smells. I think of my grandmother; the way that she walked in the house, the sounds of her feet. I think about the colors that kind of radiated, radiated through, through my grandmother’s curtains.
So when I think of home, it’s a very sensory experience, a very sensory expression.
The biggest sensory experience in my life is poetry. And poetry, to me, is home, but poetry is also kind of like a reunion or homecoming; the homecoming of myself.
It comes back into poetry; back into the way words kind of spread themselves across the page. The beautiful way that kind of language speaks to us, about who we are, when we’re sad, when we’re happy. To me, poetry is kind of the rhythm of life. It’s the whistling of when I’m having a good day. It’s the whispering when I need to kind of say, ‘I need a nudge to go further.’
(Sound of a train’s bell in Railroad Park)
No, I did not immediately find home in Birmingham. I think at first, of course. I didn’t see Birmingham’s oak tree. I couldn’t find my oak tree in Birmingham. For me, the oak tree is my place of peace.
I found my career in poetry, if you could call it that, and I guess it is that, in my late 30s. I’d just gone through a divorce and gone through a depression and those kinds of things and lost some things.
And I found a writing class here in Birmingham, with a group of women. And being with the women who were from Birmingham; writing in Birmingham; writing about things about Birmingham; and at the time, not even calling myself a writer, you know, I was just able to sit on this lady’s red couch, have hot tea and have chocolate, and have the camaraderie of other women who are artists and writers beginning to write ourselves back together again.
So, that writing myself back together again on a red couch is where I came to the revelation that I was a writer and that this writing can have some type of healing impact.
It was a home that I needed at one of the one of the kind of most, trying times in my life.
(Sound of birds chirping in Railroad Park)
I think home reminds us not just of what we lost, but a home kind of reminds us and reminded me as that became my home of what I was gaining. Reminded me of how to regain myself, how to set up my own personal kind of renewal, my own personal renaissance.
And I think when I write about Birmingham, no matter if I’m writing about Railroad Park or if I’m writing about, you know, North Birmingham or if I’m writing about violence, or if I’m writing about, you know, the wonderful things the mayor’s doing for progress I hope people see that it’s all coming from a space of homecoming.
(Sound of birds chirping in Railroad Park)
Little girls of Birmingham build their dreams on revolutions of past, present and future.
Little girls of Birmingham tear down the rancid structures of racism and bias.
Little girls of Birmingham softly and with precious ease bring the magic back into the city of iron and steel.
Little girls of Birmingham are wealthy, healthy, wise, brave, courageous and creative takers of risk.
Little girls of Birmingham we are in awe of your grace; in awe of your beauty; in awe of your style.
Little girls of Birmingham we are blessed to say your names.
Addie Mae, Denise, Carroll and Cynthia; say their names.
Little Girls of Birmingham we are blessed to fulfill the everlasting vision of love, and blessed to be on the ever-wide and ever-glowing supernatural mission of belonging and power.
Birmingham’s poet laureate Salaam Green poses on a bridge in Railroad Park on Monday, May 6, 2024. For Green, Railroad Park is a place of peace that makes her feel at home.
JEFFREY KELLY / NEXTGENRADIO
Under the trees in Railroad Park, Salaam Green, Birmingham’s inaugural poet laureate, sat on a sun-warmed wooden bench, listening to the chirps of birds. This is where, according to Green, the city felt most alive; it was where she, a rural girl at heart, felt at home.
“Nature makes me want to come closer into Birmingham, closer into the streets, closer into where the trees kind of bloom and where they live,” she said.
For Green — originally from Greensboro, Alabama — home wasn’t just Birmingham or her grandmother’s house. It was all the sensory details of her life: the smell of her grandmother’s kitchen, the sound of her footsteps and the feeling of rain. Yet, the biggest sensory experience in her life was poetry.
“Poetry is kind of the rhythm of life,” she said. “It’s the whistling of when I’m having a good day. It’s the whispering when I need to kind of say, ‘I need a nudge to go further.’”
However, Green hadn’t always been in tune with that whisper.
When she moved to Birmingham in 1999 after graduating from the University of Montevallo in Alabama, she didn’t consider herself a poet, or see Birmingham as her home. She’d gone through a divorce and depression in her late 30s that left her in a dark place. She hadn’t yet found her metaphorical oak tree, representing her place of peace.
Salaam Green (center) sits in Jim Draper’s “Feral” art exhibit in the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University during a self-care writing workshop. Community is a big part of how Green realized she was a poet.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SALAAM GREEN/THE JULE COLLINS SMITH MUSEUM OF FINE ART
It wasn’t until after a long career in education and administration that Green found an oak seedling in a creative writing class.
There, with the help of Lucy Jaffe, the class’s teacher, and other Birmingham women, Green’s seedling sprouted into an oak tree that brought her back to herself.
“I was just able to sit on this lady’s red couch in Birmingham, have hot tea and have chocolate, and have the camaraderie of other women who are artists,” she said. “It was a home that I needed at one of the most trying times in my life.”
With Jaffe’s help, Green realized she was a poet and that writing could heal.
Since then, she’s worked to bring that healing to others so they can find their own oak trees. She’d done this through Literary Healing Arts, a business she started in 2016 that focuses on the same practice of healing she experienced on Jaffe’s red couch through workshops, one-on-one sessions and various speaking events.
Due to her work with the Birmingham community, Green was named Birmingham’s inaugural poet laureate in December 2023.
This allowed her to showcase her meaning of home on a larger scale through speaking engagements and her new chapbook, Once Upon a Magic City. The chapbook came out during Poetry Month this April, and celebrates the contours of what makes the city “magic,” while introducing readers to the magic of poetry.
Many of those poems remind Green of home. One in particular, “Little Girls of Birmingham,” takes influence from her experience as a young girl in Greensboro sitting under an oak tree juxtaposed with the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little girls.
She said when she started the poem she didn’t necessarily want it to be only about the historical event that happened during the civil rights movement.
“I want it to be also a way that we can reimagine who those little girls continue to be in our lives, and also give the opportunity for other little girls and women and people in Birmingham to kind of float above who they are, as well,” Green said.
She said she’s found her oak tree in so many places in Birmingham, so she wanted to honor them and help them find theirs, which she believes creatives always try to do in their work.
Salaam Green speaks during a University of Alabama at Birmingham Black History program in February. Green became Birmingham’s inaugural poet laureate in December 2023.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SALAAM GREEN
I want it to be also a way that we can reimagine who those little girls continue to be in our lives, and also give the opportunity for other little girls and women and people in Birmingham to kind of float above who they are, as well.
Salaam Green sits on a bench at Railroad Park holding her new chapbook, Once Upon A Magic City. The chapbook’s cover art, which depicts an Afro-Southern ethereal reimagining of Birmingham’s landscape and the four little girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, was designed by Micah Briggs, a local visual artist who works for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
JEFFREY KELLY / NEXTGENRADIO
No matter what she’s writing about, whether it’s the day-to-day things happening in Birmingham, violence, or the things the mayor’s doing for progress, Green said she hopes “people see that it’s all coming from a space of homecoming.”
Green marveled at the park’s beauty and tranquility as she walked along a passageway bridge. She walked slowly, pointing out the babble of the water, how she could almost hear the turtles swimming through it, the whistling of the birds and the rudbeckia goldsturm that stood at the water’s edge on the other side.
Salaam Green stands in front of a lake at Railroad Park holding her chapbook while admiring a lone Rudbeckia Goldsturm flower. Green often goes to Railroad Park to enjoy nature when she can.
JEFFREY KELLY / NEXTGENRADIO
“I’m thinking, why don’t I have a Railroad Park poem?” she said. “It’s really inspiring to be here. It really gives me an opportunity to think about writing a poem about the place of home that sits here.”
She contemplated how she’d want to include everything she saw in the poem, not just nature but the people who care for the park, because “they deserve to be a part of that poem as well.” As she continued to round the path, the park’s rhythm inspired an opening line for the poem.
“Thank you, Railroad Park, for being such a home to so many,” she said. “Thank you, Railroad Park, for being a community to me.”