Meet Shirlette Ammons

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Credit Katina Parker

Katina Parker

Writer and musician Shirlette Ammons is not afraid of intimacy. Her poems and songs are like diary pages that she invites audiences to flip through at their leisure. Ammons is used to sharing her personal space. She grew up in a rural country home with a twin sister and dozens of cousins. After she left home for college, she started to explore her race and sexuality and used the power of the pen to document her self-discovery.

Her first collection of poetry, “Stumphole: Aunthology of Bakwoods Blood,” was published in 2002 and followed by the more recent “Matching Skin” (Carolina Wren Press/2008). Ammons is a musical artist as well. She’s the frontwoman of Mosadi Music, a hip-hop band based in the Triangle, and she just released an EP called “And Lovers Like,” with Chapel Hill blues rock band The Dynamite Brothers.