Emerald’s work is rooted in her lived experiences – from being raised during the apex of the crack epidemic to graduating from an elite boarding school, among other remarkable moments.

Emerald Carter is an artist working with poetry, pedagogy and painting to process trauma and promote resilience. Born in Brooklyn, NY to addict and absent parents, Emerald was raised by her maternal grandmother, from whom she learned creative tenacity. Emerald’s work is rooted in her lived experiences – from being raised during the apex of the crack epidemic to graduating from an elite boarding school, among other remarkable moments. 

She is a trained theologian and earned her Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary where she was elected third year divinity student representative, directed Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, and was invited to facilitate a Trailblazers series workshop after graduation. Her work in seminary focused on exegeting Black women’s literature to illuminate their ideas about God. 

Both a victim of empire and reared in its belly, Emerald uses the scant real estate of poetry to articulate the unsayable and unthread the nuisances, nuances, and pleasures of the human experience from the grotesque violences heaped upon undesirable bodies in the post-colonial project called the United States. Her poetry, prose, and essays have been published in Obsidian, Ms. Magazine, Push/Pull and elsewhere. She is a 2023 & 2024 Lincoln City Fellow.