Charlotte’s first poet laureate creates ‘music in language’ through his love of poetry

When Junious “Jay” Ward was in sixth grade, he entered a writing contest at his school in a tiny North Carolina town north of Rocky Mount.

This was in the early 1980s, around the same time of major restoration work for the Statue of Liberty. A local radio station wanted kids from his grade level to write songs or poems about bringing awareness to the restoration.

Ward won the contest after writing a rap song and recording it on a cassette tape. ”The process of writing it awakened something in me, and I started pursuing rap and writing poems.”

Accolades of a different kind came in April, when the slam poet and poetry advocate was named the city of Charlotte’s first poet laureate at an event hosted by Blumenthal Performing Arts.

Poet laureate finalists were assessed not just on their past literary experience, but their advocacy for the arts and their ability to fulfill duties of the role. The two-year post comes with a $2,000 stipend from the city.

Ward said he is taking it upon himself as the city’s first poet laureate to help define the role “to figure out what’s possible, and to create pathways to success for future poet laureates.”

Lessons from Langston Hughes

Ward, 47, was born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. When he was 5, his family moved to Rich Square, a 3-mile-square town about an hour’s drive northeast of Rocky Mount.

He credits his middle school English teacher, Cecilia Tudors, for exposing him to Langston Hughes and other Harlem Renaissance giants.

“Langston Hughes infused the rhymes of jazz into his cadence,” he said. “I was drawn to that. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but it sounded really cool.”

Tudors also read to her class every week.

“She read ‘Where the Red Fern Grows,’ and I’m seeing everything. I’m getting involved in the story, and the story is (becoming) a movie in my head, which is what good literature does,” Ward said. “It really showed me what spoken word could do, and what the sonic nature of reading prose or poetry can do.”

Around that time, hip-hop artists like Nas and Black Thought, co-founder of The Roots along with drummer Questlove, infused pop culture and had a profound effect on Ward.

“I wanted to create music in the language. So a lot of my rhythm and cadence comes from that desire for the words to be able to stand on their own, and when they’re heard, to have their own music.”

He attended Elizabeth City State University, and after college, he moved to the Washington, D.C. area. D.C. was his home for the next 23 years, mainly working as a telecommunications project manager.

For the first decade or so, Ward took a hiatus and didn’t write anything.

“Those years, it just felt like something was missing,” he said. “I tried stamp collecting, and coin collecting, and I thought I needed a hobby.” None of those stuck.

Ward eventually joined a poetry group, then attended open mic sessions where people were performing spoken word. “From then,” he said, “I started writing again.”

Neighborhood influences

In 2006, Ward moved to Charlotte.

He considers his three nieces and nephews from a previous marriage as his own kids. (They are now all in their twenties.) “When my kids started getting older, in middle school and high school, I started to see the world politically through their eyes.

“As artists, as poets, we are translating the world and handing it back to people, so what we write about is influenced by what’s happening around us,” Ward said. “If we’re writing about the beauty of a bird, even in that, we can’t help but be influenced by what’s happening in Ukraine…

“We can’t help but be influenced by what’s happening in our neighborhoods. All that is somehow in the poem, even if it’s not perceptible, it is somehow influencing the way that you’re writing or the way that you’re creating art.”

Writing and performance topics

Ward has written and performed pieces on gentrification, police violence and life as an African American.

At a 2020 performance in St. Louis, Ward dedicated his poem “Bees” to “the Black boy who was shot in front of Burger King in Charlotte” — a reference to Danquirs Franklin, who was shot and killed by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer in 2019.

Ward also is the author of Sing Me a Lesser Wound, a micro poetry book, and is a national and individual World Poetry Slam champion.

His poems have been published in DIAGRAM, Columbia Journal, The Amistad, Diode Poetry Journal and other publications.

Ward’s current work, “Composition”, is a full-length book of poems that explores the historical perceptions of Blackness and biracial identity through a Southern lens. It will be released in February.

And Ward is program director for BreatheINK, a nonprofit that supports positive self-expression for youth through poetry.

Increased visibility

Ward remains active around the area.

For Juneteenth, he performed at an event in Indian Trail. And he recently participated in a panel discussion as part of “Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture,” an art installation at the Projective Eye Gallery on the UNC Charlotte Center City campus.

“The difference in having the actual (laureate) position is that (poets) have a little bit more visibility and leverage with the people who can make change…” he said, “the people in the city and the organizations that are in the city.”

Ward also plans to work to create or strengthen partnerships with Charlotte Lit, the Arts & Science Council, and local schools and libraries.

“I want poetry to grow and flourish,” he said. “There are a ton of artists doing that work already. Maybe we can put them in a better position to do more work.”

Ward will hold the poet laureate position for two years.

“I’m excited that there’s a position because there’s someone after me, and someone after them,” he said. “Poetry will be in good hands for years to come.”

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This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 10:59 AM.