Photo courtesy of the Maturin Cultural Center, Venezuela World Poetry Festival
Web links:
Poetry Society of America A. A. Hedge Coke
Academy of American Poets inclusion "Street Confetti"
Poetry Foundation "Redwing Blackbird"
Poetry Foundation "When the Animals Leave This Place"
Universe of Poetry
PEN Member A. A. Hedge Coke
Poets & Writers "Passing the Torch" mentors, including Hedge Coke
AWP Conference Selected Speaker Episode 10 Podcast
Southern Spaces Poets in Place, Placeholder, A. A. Hedge Coke
WYEP NPR Prosody Interview with Allison Hedge Coke
Will am NPR Focus Interview, Carr Reading Series
Editing Platte Valley Review
Platte Valley Review @ Poets & Writers
Hosting Reynolds Series & Sandhill Cranefest
Reynolds Series Billy Collins
Reynolds Scholars & Reynolds Series Natasha Trethewey
Sandhill Cranefest on NPR
Friday Live Cranefest Segment
Events/Performances
Split This Rock
Nebraska Center for the Book
South Dakota Center for the Book
Bruno Walter Auditorium, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, PEN American Event.
Click here for portrait photo by Beowulf Sheehan for Pen American
Photo of Allison Hedge Coke, Amina Baraka, & Amiri Baraka photo by Beowulf Sheehan at the Pen American Open Book Awards
For the upcoming features, on book orders:
Great sale for the memoir:
Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
contact:
"Razor-sharp."—Chris Rubich, Billings Gazette
Off-Season City Pipe
Drawing on her background as a tobacco sharecropper, factory worker, and fisherwoman, Hedge Coke fills the void of Native American working-class literature with poems as vivid in their telling as they are powerful in their ethos. Off-Season City Pipe lyrically articulates the stark contrast between an ancestry whose strong work ethic, manual skills, and environmental stewardship defined their communities, but whose present circumstances have forced so many into poverty, performing work that fails to provide sustenance for the land or its people.
Listed on Poetry Foundation Bestsellers, in the U.S., from time to time.
Dog Road Woman
"Allison Hedge Coke is a skilled, spirited, young poet who is transforming and honing her social and personal experience and reflection to speak with the voice of a whole people. This is a very formidable task, but it is, finally, the work we’ve chosen. She’s up to it." - Amiri Baraka
In Dog Road Woman, an autobiographical sketch of a contemporary mixed-blood native life, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke weaves the shapes and patterns of her heritage into a magnificent tapestry of prayer, story and song. Dog Road Woman is winner of a 1998 American Book Award and a finalist for the 1998 Patterson Poetry Prize.
Coffee House Press
79 Thirteenth Avenue NE,
Suite 110
Minneapolis, MN 55413
molly@coffeehousepress.org
Phone: 612.338.0125
Fax: 612.338.4004
For Blood Run & Effigies:
Descriptions:
Blood Run
Effigies
Bestselling UK
Also, listed on Poetry Foundation Bestsellers, in the U.S., from time to time.
Blood Run panel covered by Craig Santos Perez here: Poetry Foundation, Harriet Blog, NALS
Effigies covered by Craig Santos Perez here: Poetry Foundation, Harriet Blod AWP
LONDON OFFICE
Salt Publishing Limited
Fourth Floor
2 Tavistock Place
Bloomsbury
LONDON
WC1H 9RA
After years of lobbying for Blood Run, these very poems being composed during the process were the breakthrough testimony that caused the Game, Fish, & Parks people to come to a unanimous vote in favor of acquisitioning and preserving the SD side of the site.
Where to donate to Blood Run
(pull down menu: Blood Run Native American Historical Site) Please give!
Mayor's Award for Excellence in Literary Arts during lobbying & early drafts of Blood Run inclusions
Hedge Coke's Off-Season Blog
Hedge Coke Readings are midway down this blog and: Click Here: Reading Listings
Split This Rock Poetry Festival Feature 2010
NPR WYEP Prosody
PEN Highlights of 2008 Reading from The Perfect Man
A. A. Hedge Coke Weihai Evening 1
A. A. Hedge Coke Boy Feeding Chick and Rabbits
(More travel photos following, down to end of page.)
for Creighton Authors Page
Booking
Speakers for a New America
South Dakota Arts Council
SDAC News Artist Collaboration Grant 2008-2009 approved for Brent Michael Davids & Allison Hedge Coke's work with poetry & music.
Travis' L337 Theory
Also, to order downloadable podcasts of both past and future Lannan programs (including outstanding literary reading performances as well as phenomenal author interviews):
Lannan Programs
Check out the Lumberyard Readings-- see January 15th -- Travis Hedge Coke, Patricia Smith, others
To order To Topos AHANI: Indigenous American Poetry
Western Hemisphere contributors from the Arctic to Antarctic Circles (Inuit to Mapuche) from Oregon State University, Guest Edited by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke [poetry] Winner, Wordcraft Journal of the Year, Editing.
To order Blood Run
Free Verse Play from Salt Publications UK/USA [poetry] Winner, Wordcraft Writer of the Year, Poetry.
To Listen to the Food for Thought SDPR Interview 01-06-08
SDPR Midday
To order from City Lights Bookstore
Support City Lights
To order Off-Season City Pipe
WC Writer of the Year Award Winning Labor Poetry from Coffee House Press [poetry]
Drawing on her background as a tobacco sharecropper, factory worker, and fisherwoman, Hedge Coke fills the void of Native American working-class literature with poems as vivid in their telling as they are powerful in their ethos. Off-Season City Pipe lyrically articulates the stark contrast between an ancestry whose strong work ethic, manual skills, and environmental stewardship defined their communities, but whose present circumstances have forced so many into poverty, performing work that fails to provide sustenance for the land or its people.
To order Dog Road Woman
American Book Award winning volume from Coffee House Press [poetry]
"A welcome new voice in American Poetry." - Jessica Hagedorn
"Allison Hedge Coke is a skilled, spirited, young poet who is transforming and honing her social and personal experience and reflection to speak with the voice of a whole people. This is a very formidable task, but it is, finally, the work we’ve chosen. She’s up to it." - Amiri Baraka
In Dog Road Woman, an autobiographical sketch of a contemporary mixed-blood native life, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke weaves the shapes and patterns of her heritage into a magnificent tapestry of prayer, story and song. Dog Road Woman is winner of a 1998 American Book Award and a finalist for the 1998 Patterson Poetry Prize.
Hedge Coke recounts surviving domestic violence, racism, addiction, and an extraordinary number of challenges. By drawing upon a variety of poetic and prosaic forms, she simulates and transforms the rhythms and sounds of her people. Dog Road Woman is a sublime presentation of the strength, beauty, and spirit of the nations.
To order Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
AIROS Native American Calling Book of the Month from the University of Nebraska Press [memoir] [Native memoir] [North American Memoir]
Support City Lights
Editing Series:
New Release Effigies
It is a rare pleasure to unleash beauty upon the ever-tragic world, an exception to the plagued misfortune of greed, despair, and injury. Though elements of colonization do present certain challenges and malady to a natural world inhabited for tens of thousands of years by peoples steeped in ideologies, practical and philosophic systems, they do not overcome the lingual sensibilities and prowess of the poets representing the areas of the planet present in this text. Instead the poets overcome the intrusion.
From baleen row, razor clam edge, rabid willow ptarmigan plume, to white buds of plumeria, gardenia, lei, shaded grave of dried lauhala and graying niu, fertile Pacific essence swells these poems into hummock ice knolls, into layers and layers of white sea laps rolling, into mindfulness, consideration, climate care—belonging.
From ulu, to cane knife, where aurora’s green vein bleeds blue and tangles into indigo or green-robed mauna combs t? stalks, palms, kukui, and pines. From Barrow to Waihe’e, tethered and hammered through wild among dark branches and snared by voices, these poems harbor whale and seal oil burning to bring sustenance to a reader’s search for light and with them carry us into a seafaring world of rich embrace. Spectacular, immediate, these beaches and beeches along the shores provide a tactile relationship made immense in their stream-crafted images.
Effigies juxtaposes the distinctive voices and visions of four emerging poets — dg nanouk okpik, Cathy Rexford, Brandy Nalani McDougall, and Mahealani Perez-Wendt. In drawing from their Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian cultures and histories, the poems in this book are not an assemblage but a living force and create an intricate, haunting weave.
Arthur Sze
What a shape-shifting moment, this release of four lush and necessary voices into the open air. Linked by blood and fevered lyric, dg nanouk okpik, Cathy Tagnak Rexford, Brandy Nalani McDougall and Mahealani Perez-Wendt offer up unapologetic and unflinching lessons that, as okpik says in the astonishing "Corpse Whale," shove "sinew back into the threaded bones of the land." Individually, each of these voices would be a revelation. Collectively, they're a revolution.
Patricia Smith
Global Release of Effigies! Pacific Rim Indigenous poets from Alaska & Hawaii. dg nanouk okpik, Cathy Tagnak Rexford, Brandy Nalani McDougall, and Mahealani Perez-Wendt are four exceptional emerging poets. Come read these terrific four books collected in one volume!
While on the Salt Publishing site, order your copy of Blood Run, the first free-verse play written in tribute to a Mound City Site--Blood Run, a significant historical mound city in Eastern South Dakota & Western Iowa. WC Writer of the Year Award in Poetry.
Editing:
Platte Valley Review @ Poets & Writers
Editing Platte Valley Review
Bio:
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke was born between paternal oratory and sudden maternal madness; somewhere north of the condor and south of raven. Crow sometimes cawed morning into malady's mixture, pouring song and hack into bleating skies, swirling sunrise and set. Once, high over the Arctic, she witnessed the pounding lights hammer horizon. Since that time her rendezvous with realtime has been a real ride.
Hedge Coke is a MacDowell, Black Earth Institute Think-Tank, Hawthornden Castle, Weymouth Center, and Center for Great Plains Research Fellow, and holds the Distinguished Paul W. Reynolds and Clarice Kingston Reynolds Endowed Chair in English as an Associate Professor of Poetry and Writing at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. She is a core faculty in the University of Nebraska MFA Program and Visiting Faulty of the MFA Intensive Programs at University of California, Palm Desert and Naropa University. Her books include: Dog Road Woman, American Book Award, Coffee House Press, 1997; The Year of the Rat, chapbook, Grimes Press, 2000; Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer, AIROS Book-of-the-Month, University of Nebraska Press, 2004; Off-Season City Pipe, Wordcraft Writer of the Year for Poetry, Coffee House Press, 2005; Blood Run, Wordcraft Writer of the Year for Poetry, Salt Publications, UK 2006-US 2007; and To Topos Ahani, Oregon State University, 2007.
Allison Hedge Coke, Reynolds Chair, Faculty Page
Rows just ahead:
Allison Hedge Coke, Engagements
Selected Forthcoming Presentations & Events:
SE Writers Conference. September 2010.
SD Book Fest. Sioux Falls, SD.September 2010.
Writers Garret Residency. Dallas, TX. Fall Break, October 2010.
Macalester College. MIA. St. Paul, MN. November 2010.
NU (UNK/UNO) MFA Program Residency. Nebraska City, NE. December 2010/January 2011.
AWP. Washington, D.C. February 2011.
Asheville Wordfest. Asheville, NC. 2011.
Residency. Marfa, TX. May/June 2011.
NU (UNK/UNO) MFA Program Residency. Nebraska City, NE. July 2011.
Kimmel Harding Residency. Nebraska City, NE. July 2011.
Arts Corr. Custer, SD. August 2011.
Hosting: UNK Reynolds Series & UNK Literary Sandhill Cranefest. 2010 – 2011.
Guests for No Limits Conference & World Affairs Conference UNK. 2011.
Allison Hedge Coke has been an invitational performer in international poetry festivals in Medellin, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Canada, and Jordan and foreign visiting professional in poetry and writing, Shandong University in Wei Hai, China. She is a Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, MacDowell Colony for Artists, Black Earth Institute Think Tank, Hawthornden Castle, and Center for Great Plains Research Fellow, is a former National Endowment for the Humanities Appointment Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hartwick College, and holds the Distinguished Paul W. Reynolds and Clarice Kingston Reynolds Endowed Chair in Poetry as an Associate Professor of Poetry and Writing at the University of Nebraska, Kearney where she directs the Reynolds Reading Series and Sandhill Crane Migration Retreat. She is core faculty in the University of Nebraska MFA Program and Visiting Faulty of the MFA Intensive Programs at University of California, Palm Desert and Naropa University, and a 2008 Paul Hanly Furfey Endowed Lecturer. Her books include: Dog Road Woman, American Book Award, Coffee House Press, 1997; The Year of the Rat, chapbook, Grimes Press, 2000; Rock Ghost, Willow, Deer, AIROS Book-of-the-Month, University of Nebraska Press, 2004; Off-Season City Pipe, Wordcraft Writer of the Year for Poetry, Coffee House Press, 2005; Blood Run, Wordcraft Writer of the Year for Poetry, Salt Publications, UK 2006-US 2007; To Topos Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry, Journal Issue of the Year Award (ed.), Oregon State University, 2007; and Effigies, (ed.), Salt Publications, 2009. She has edited five other volumes. Her long poem "The Year of the Rat" is currently being made into a ballet through collaboration with Brent Michael Davids, composer. Recent literary publications include Connecticut Review, Prometeo Memories, Akashic Books, and Black Renaissance Noire. Recent photography publications include Connecticut Review, Future Earth Magazine and Digital Poetics. She has also authored a full-length play Icicles, numerous monologues, and has worked in theater, television, and film. Hedge Coke has been awarded several state and regional artistic and literary grants, fellowships, and tours; multiple excellence in teaching awards, including the King Chavez Parks Award; a Sioux Falls Mayor's Award for Literary Excellence; a National Mentor of the Year, a Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Award; has served on several state, community, and national boards in the arts, a housing board, as a Delegate, in the United Nations Women in Peacemaking Conference, Joan B. Kroc Center for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego, and as a United Nations Presenting Speaker (with James Thomas Stevens, Mohawk Poet), Facilitator, and Speaker Nominator for the only Indigenous Literature Panel of the Indigenous Peoples Human Rights Forum. For many years she has worked with incarcerated and underserved Indigenous youth and youth of color mentorship programs and served as a court official in Indian youth advocacy and CASA. Hedge Coke is editing the Platte Valley Review and two book series of emerging Indigenous writing (Salt Publishing and Red Hen Press). She is of mixed descent and came of age working fields, waters, and working in factories.
Selected Recent Activities:
*August 3-6, 2010. CYCC Custer State Park Incarcerated Youth Residency
*July 17-24, 2010. Nebraska Low Res MFA Program Summer Residency.
*June Third Week 2010. Naropa University Summer Writing Program Residency (MFA/BFA).
*June 15, 2010. SD Prison Workshop. Yankton, South Dakota.
*June 6-9, 2010. Filming with Southern Spaces in North Carolina.
*June 2-14, 2010. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, Resident Fellow, Southern Pines, North Carolina.
*April 30 – May 2, 2010. Invitational Field Symposium, “DRAGONFLY EYES: Multiple Ways to Envision the Future.” H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the Oregon Cascades. The symposium will bring together distinguished writers, architects, artists, humanities scholars, land managers, social scientists and ecologists to find ways to bring literary, artistic, and moral imagination together with the best empirical science to more fully imagine future scenarios of landscape change. The Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, the Andrews Experimental Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program, and the U.S. Forest Service. You can find more information about the Spring Creek Project and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest on the websites:http://springcreek.oregonstate.edu/ and http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter/
.++
*April 7-10, 2009, AWP. Activities include: Honoring the Sandhill Crane Literary Fest Panel, Women Writing the West, Prose Poem Reading/Talk, and coordinator Indigenous Writer Caucus -- also book table for newly released Platte Valley Review and Nebraska Low Res MFA Program (Uno?UNK joint program) AWP
AWP
*March 10-13, 2010, Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, Washington, DC. Featured. Split This Rock Poetry Festival Feature 2010
Split This Rock Poetry Festival Feature 2010
Allison Hedge Coke: America, I Sing Back
*January 28, 2010, Carr Residency, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Featured Reading/Class Visits. Carr Residency
*January 6-9, 2009, Tiospa Zina High School, Sisseton Agency. Teaching Residency. South Dakota Arts Council Artist.
*December 28-January 4, 2009, University of Nebraska Low-Residency MFA Program, Faculty, Featured Reading, Lecture. University of Nebraska Low-Residency MFA Program
*Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls, SD. Poetry Opening, P3 Exhibit, December 4th, 2010-February 28th, 2010.
*November 14th, 2009, Nebraska Book Festival.
Professor Hedge Coke will also be reading at the Nebraska Book Festival on Saturday, 14 November, from 3:15-3:45 in the Auditorium of the Nebraska State Historical Museum, 15th and P Streets, Lincoln.
Reading sponsored by Native American Studies, the Department of English, and the Place Conscious Literature Group, UNL
*November 13th, 2009, University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
BAILEY LIBRARY, 227 ANDREWS
RECEPTION AND BOOK SIGNING TO FOLLOW
Allison A. Hedge Coke is a noted poet and nature writer whose books include Dog Road Woman (1997), Off-Season City Pipe (2005), Blood Run (2007), the memoir Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer (2004), and Effigies: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing, Pacific Rim (2009). Her work is strongly influenced by her heritage, and reflects her lifelong love and observation of the physical, animal, and plant worlds around us.
Visit/Reading. Dr. Fran Kaye, Organizer.
*October 29-31, 2009, University of South Dakota, John R. Milton Writer's Conference, Featured Writer. John R. Milton Writer's Conference
*November 4th, 2009, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Missouri Valley Reading Series, Featured Reading. Missouri Valley Reading Series
Western Association of Literature, October 3, 2009
Western Association of Literature
Return of NC Authors, Eastern Carolina Literary Homecoming
NC Lit Homecoming
September 24, 2009
Keynote “Many Souths: Remembering, Sustaining, Creating.”
Eighth Biennial Southern Women Writers Conference
Berry College
Mount Berry, GA
http://www.berry.edu/academics/humanities/english/swwc2009/bios.asp
Eastern Carolina University-North Carolina September 25-26, 2009
So Lit Conf
Invitational Photography Gallery Show, ECU & Pitt County Arts Council at Emerge Gallery
Summer-Fall
April 7-10, 2009, AWP. AWP
September 14th, 2009
Weyerhauser Ballroom
Macalester College, St. Paul 7:00 Reading
Woking with Incarcerated Youth In South Dakota, Sessions run July 19-August 22, 2009.
Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities Residency May 18th-June 1, 2009
International Poetry Festival of Resistance, Toronto April 24th-30th, 2009 Cuban Five International Festival
Poetry Festival
Detroit, Wayne State, Reading with Jan Beatty March 29, 2009
http://www.detroitmidtown.com/05/culevents_calendar.php?cid=60&msub=3">Detroit Scarab Club
Ann Arbor, Reading with Jan Beatty at Shaman's Drum March 26th, 2009
Shaman Durm Bookstore
Women's Month University of Idaho March 2-3, 2009
U Idaho
Hosting-UNK Crane Festival March 14-25, 2009
Fredy Chicangana, Sherwin Bitsui, Cristina Eisenberg, Linda Hogan, LeAnne Howe, Laura Tohe, and Wang Ping.
Sandhill Crane Conference
World Affairs Conference Moderator March 9, 2009
WAC UNK
Environmental Policy, Macalester College, Panel with Will Steger, Mark Dayton, and Allison Hedge Coke, Organized by Wang Ping, February 18
Policy
Who Speaks for the Dead, Western Virginia University, Panel, February 17
WVU
AWP, two panels, off-site reading, poet presentation UniVerse, three signings, February 12-14
Offsite
http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2009ConfArchive/2009awpconf.php">On site
January 15, 2009 Reading at MONA, 7:00 pm
Stories from the Maze Reservation Youth, Visiting Writer Residency, January 5-8
Low-Residency MFA University of Nebraska December 27-January 4
Arts Corr December TBA
Macalester December 9th, Reading
December 3rd, PEN USA Awards, Judge
December 1st, Hosting Don Welch Book Party, MONA
November 18th, SUNY Fredonia, Featured Reading
November 5th, Oxnard Community College, Featured Reading
October 29, Host, Quincy Troupe Reading Performance
October 24, Host, Marvin Bell Reading Performance
October 18th, Nebraska Book Festival, Reading
Tuesday, October 14th, PEN American Awards, NYC, Judge, Reading Presentation
http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1491
http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/2821/prmID/1494
http://flickr.com/photos/penamericancenter/sets/72157609615047579/show/
October 11th, 2008, Bowery Poetry Club Reading with LaTasha Diggs
September 26-28, 2008, SD Book Festival
September 25, Host, Carol Moldaw Reading Performance
September 17, Northeast Community College, Reading
September 16, Wayne State University, Reading
September 11, Host, Arthur Sze Reading Performance
Other Tassels:
Hosting:
Reynolds Series:
Spring 2010 Honoring the Sandhill Crane Festival & Literary Retreat and National Poetry Day Readings:
Reynolds Series, Fall 2009, Anne Waldman, Jan Beatty, Sam Hamill, Reynolds Scholars (Laura Jensen, Rachel Einspahr, Ryan DeMoss, Sandra Anthony, Amanda Brabec, and Brittany Seawell), Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Matthew Shenoda, Ofelia Zepeda, Robert Ficociello, Eddie Chuculate, and Stephen Graham Jones.
Anne Waldman, September 9, 2009. Fine Arts Studio Theatre, UNK Campus.
Marvin Bell, Reading 09/25/08, Reynolds Series, Kearney Hub Article
Carol Moldaw, Reading 09/25/08, Reynolds Series, Kearney Hub Article
Carol Moldaw, Reading 09/25/08, Reynolds Series, Friday Live Podcast
Arthur Sze, Reading 09/11/08, Reynolds Series, Hub Article
Arthur Sze, Event Listing, 9/11/08
Carol Moldaw, Event Listing, 9/24/08
Carol Moldaw, Event Article, 9/24/08, Reynolds Series, Kearney Hub
Today's Hub Pick, Carol Moldaw
The Reynolds Series
Honoring the Sandhill Crane Fest II & Reynolds Series 2009
Sandhill Cranes Photo by A. A. Hedge Coke
Reynolds Series March 2008 Included the Honoring the Sandhill Crane Tribute Retreat. Hosted: Wang Ping author of numerous award winning books, includingthe Last Communist Virgin, LeAnne Howe, author of Evidence of Red, Shell Shaker, and Mikko Kings, exemplary poet Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy, oraliterature weaver Aty Janay, the prolific poet James Thomas Stevens who most recently authoredA Bridge Dead in Water and Janet McAdams Island of Lost Luggage and Feral. Ramon Palomares, Fredy Chicangana, and Jack Collom were unable to come at this time. March 7-14th during the 40 to 60,000,000 year annual apex of the Sandhill Crane migration to the Kearney, Nebraska area, where 600,000 cranes are expected to arrive in this season, these poets and writers came to retreat here with the migration and performed numerous presentations for UNK and the general public.
Migration Season 2 Photo by A. A. Hedge Coke
Honoring the Sandhill Crane Fest I & The Reynolds Series Fall 2008
More Reynolds Series:
Reynolds Chair PEN
Appointment as Reynolds Chair began summer 2007, UNK. AWP
Diane Glancy & Linda Hogan, Reynolds Series
Linda Hogan, Kearney Hub, Reynolds Series
Diane Glancy, Kearney Hub, Reynolds Series
Kate Gale, Reynolds Series
Kate Gale NTV, Reynolds Series
Sherwin Bisui & Michael Dumanis, Reynolds Series Weblink
Sherwin Bitsui NTV, Reynolds Series Weblink
my 'favs' shelf:
Fall 2007, Reynolds Series
Wings:
Core faculty member, MFA program in eastern Nebraska:
University of Nebraska MFA
Visiting Faculty, MFA program at UC Palm Desert, Spring 2008.
On Blood Run:
If William Blake were a twenty-first-century American Indian woman, he would be Hedge Coke. Like Blake declaiming against soul-destroying "dark Satanic mills," Hedge Coke calls for us to recognize the sanctity of ancestral land and to protect it, for "no human should dismantle prayer." The specific land of which she speaks is a vast city built on the border of what is now Iowa and South Dakota. Home to as many as 10,000 people, it is now partially obliterated by plows and desecrated by looters. In a series of dramatic monologues, Hedge Coke animates the landscape and, indeed, the cosmos. Corn speaks, and various mounds; the river speaks, and deer and stone. Even the looters speak, as do the skeletons they remove for sale to medical schools. Blood Run is the setting for this long, dramatic sequence of poems, but its subject is really the need to resanctify the world. The poet's voice is oracular, deliberately disturbing and demanding. Hedge Coke's visionary long conclusion, "When the Animals Leave This Place," defines the transformation of Earth that follows disasters and offers a sensuous solace as well as a frightening prediction of what we may face as ecological change accelerates. An impressive book by an important poet. Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. Blood Run Review From Booklist. All rights reserved Book DescriptionThis volume testifies to the need to protect the remarkable ruins of the Indigenous North American city of Blood Run and the sacred remains she guards there in mounded tombs. The persona poems herein emanate its character embraced in architectural accomplishment designed in accordance with the sun and moon and multitudes of stars above.
I am a descendent of the mound-builders. I say, Praise to the book that praises this mystery and beauty and history. Allison Hedge Coke is a woman who has fallen deep into the earth world and reveals its hidden truths. She is a mesmerizing artist, with work based on research chanted into poetry.
Linda Hogan
These poems bear witness to a difficult age, an age built on a spiral of earthliness. They make an honoring song for the earth. This honoring song carries joy, sadness, fury and grief. We need this gift, these poems.
Joy Harjo, Mvksoke poet and musician
“Blood Run” the name of an ancient site in an eastern corner of the US state South Dakota. Hundreds of mounds were built here by Native American Plains peoples and cultures, a thousand years before the arrival of the white intruders (e.g., settlers, military). The poems revive the history of the sites at “Blood Run” giving profound voice to humans, animals, plants and structures, also with political-ecological hope for the future to preserve ancient spiritual places.
Bernhard Widder
Purity in Poetry! Allison Hedge Coke has captured the true essence of the way of life, celebration of life enjoyed by all the many nations of Indigenous people(s) living here on our Makoce (land) which all indigenous nations call in unison Mother Earth. All Our Relations (Mitakuye Oyasin) is eloquently spoken and expressed by Allison. It is a true honor to have a kola (friend) a true Indigenous winyan (lady), to hold, keep and express the true spirit of all nations. I AM HONORED.
Irwin Sharp Fish, Sr.2003-04 NIEA Teacher of the Year
On Off-Season City Pipe:
From BooklistHedge Coke's reputation rests on her memoirs concerned with her Native American heritage, such as the searing and memorable Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer [BKL Ap 15 04]. Here she reveals another identity, as a poet of the American worker--"cracker-packin' girls" and "fieldworkers and framers like me"--in long-lined, conversational poems full of southern swing and storytelling zest. She captures the lives of people struggling, sometimes failing like the zoned-out man in the Mission District who needs a "Houdini mentality to stand," but also exulting in their strength, like the women who, "double-handed / popping apart plump green strings / fresh from leafy hills," can pint after pint of produce. Though informed by the history of Indian struggle, the poems are set more in the city than on the reservation, in places "the BIA forgot to watch." Anyone interested in the often silenced voices of America's working poor will appreciate these poems. Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved The Pulse of the Twin Cities, May 12, 2005Hedge Coke unites American working-class experience with her heritage in a sinewy lyricism where exhaustion co-exists with the exultant.
On Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer:
From BooklistThis is a harrowing book. Statistics about alcoholism and family violence among dispossessed American Indians fail to show the sheer human suffering it causes and the personal heroism of those who struggle through to an integrated life. Hedge Coke was endowed by her father with insights into the Indian way of life, but the pressures of prejudice and her mother's insanity drove her into years of drug and alcohol abuse as well as into abusive relationships. She writes in a stately, unashamed manner of beatings and binges, always connecting her personal sufferings to the larger questions of how Indian people can reclaim their cultural and personal pride and authority. A tragic loss ends the book's story, but far from making it a tale of failure, this final death confirms, through Hedge Coke's presentation, her growth into a profound witness to Indian culture and its deep-rooted spiritual and philosophical values. Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved ReviewBooklist :
"This is a harrowing book. Statistics about alcoholism and family violence among dispossessed American Indians fail to show the sheer human suffering it causes and the personal heroism of those who struggle through to an integrated life. Hedge Coke was endowed by her father with insights into the Indian way of life, but the pressures of prejudice and her mother's insanity drove her into years of drug and alcohol abuse as well as into abusive relationships. She writes in a stately, unashamed manner of beatings and binges, always connecting her personal sufferings to the larger questions of how Indian people can reclaim their cultural and personal pride and authority."--Booklist.Chris Rubich Billings Gazette :
"Razor-sharp."--Chris Rubich, Billings Gazette.Joy Harjo :
"What I've always admired about Allison Hedge Coke's poetry is her astounding courage. And the ability to seamlessly weave the tobacco fields of childhood with the stark plains and hills of South Dakota. And more than all that-the shining spirit of compassion." --Joy Harjo, Mvskoke poet and musician.Diane Zephier Quiet Mountain Essays :
"This book has the ability to open eyes, and to provide freedom on a deep and pesonal level through the glory of truth, which is a beautiful thing no matter how shocking its origins. Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer is one read that you will not forget."--Diane Zephier, Quiet Mountain Essays.Maggie Necefer Multicultural Review :
"An extraordinary story of survival, compassion, courage, and a balanced comprehension of acceptance and the will to live."--Maggie Necefer, Multicultural ReviewFourth Genre :
"It is through her lush yet controlled use of language that Hedge Coke successfully creates a narrative of both personal and cultural history.. She is often unflinchingly succinct in her telling of some painful event, and other times, especially when describing moments when she is close to death, she offers us lyric gems.... She travels like a liminal being, moving fluidly across boundaries between prose and poetry, dream and reality, myth and history, animal and human, the personal and political."-- Fourth GenreCampbell Editorial.com :
Hedge Coke's "childhood and young adult years as recounted in this gritty and courageous memoir are not only a story of survival but a story of strength."--Campbell Editorial.com
On Dog Road Woman:
Dog Road WomanPoems by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
"These are songs of righteous anger and utter beauty." - Joy Harjo
"A welcome new voice in American Poetry." - Jessica Hagedorn
"Allison Hedge Coke is a skilled, spirited, young poet who is transforming and honing her social and personal experience and reflection to speak with the voice of a whole people. This is a very formidable task, but it is, finally, the work we’ve chosen. She’s up to it." - Amiri Baraka
In Dog Road Woman, an autobiographical sketch of a contemporary mixed-blood native life, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke weaves the shapes and patterns of her heritage into a magnificent tapestry of prayer, story and song. Dog Road Woman is winner of a 1998 American Book Award and a finalist for the 1998 Patterson Poetry Prize.
Hedge Coke recounts surviving domestic violence, racism, addiction, and an extraordinary number of challenges. By drawing upon a variety of poetic and prosaic forms, she simulates and transforms the rhythms and sounds of her people. Dog Road Woman is a sublime presentation of the strength, beauty, and spirit of the nations.
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, of Huron, Tsa la gi, French Canadian and Portuguese descent, grew up in North Carolina, Canada, Texas, and throughout the Great Plains. She is the author of the American Book Award-winning debut poetry collection Dog Road Woman, the new Off-Season City Pipe, and the memoir Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer. Instrumental in creating Native American and incarcerated youth mentorship programs throughout the country, Hedge Coke now teaches at Naropa University.
Please check these links:
Please watch:
http://www.survival-international.org/uncontactedtribes
http://www.survival-international.org/uncontactedtribes
Recent Engagements:
May 14-18, 2008 Indigenous Poets & Writers Retreat, Soul Mountain Retreat, courtesy of Marilyn Nelson, Connecticut.
A. A. Hedge Coke Walk over Esk 1
A. A. Hedge Coke Drummond's Place
Full Month Long (May 24-June 21, 2008) Hawthornden Castle Writer Fellowship Residency.
A. A. Hedge Coke Bamboo 1 China July 2-July 16, 2008
A. A. Hedge Coke Fruit Bat 1
2008 Indigenous Poets & Writers Retreat, Soul Mountain Retreat, co-hosting with LeAnne Howe. Courtesy of the phenomenal poet and human being, Marilyn Nelson and her working group: Rhonda Ward and Giddeon, LeAnne Howe, Lara Mann, Santee Frazier, and I are all taking in the beauty of Old Lyme Connecticut here where dozens of turtles rise up and down the pond waters, split by skeins of Canadian Geese, alongside lush banks huddled over by an always eager marmot and several early robins. The air is ripe with poetry, writing, and much needed rest and community support. Santee has proven his worth as a chef as well as poet. LeAnne is providing great insight, intelligence, and terrific comic relief. Lara is ever-present with her Sedaris in-hand for belly laughs to carry her through the rigorous poetry drive she has committed to. We read in Central Gallery in Old Saybrook with Rhonda on Saturday. LeAnne's blog http://mikokings.wordpress.com/ has a photo and updates.
With what is happening in the world, with the weather turned on its head, people in turmoil and the over drawn-out campaign primary madness, this break is welcome welcome.
Marilyn runs a great retreat here open to poets/writers of various communities. www.soulmountainretreat.com
University of Nebraska MFA Intensive Residency July 16-July 20, 2008
Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture for the Association of the Sociology of Religions Conference Park Plaza Hotel Boston August 1st, 2008
A. A. Hedge Coke Nebraska Clouds 1
Allison Hedge Coke, Arts Corr Residency, Incarcerated Youth Facility, South Dakota. August 18-22.
Allison Hedge Coke, Wang Ping and MacAlester students. Boundary Waters. Aug. 29.
Allison Hedge Coke Reading, Elements, Uptown Arts Festival Reading. September 6.
Allison Hedge Coke Reading, Wayne State Reading. September 16
Allison Hedge Coke Reading, Northeast Community College, Norfolk. September 17
Allison Hedge Coke Reads at the South Dakota Festival of Books. Sioux Falls. September 24-26
Bowery Poetry Project NYC, Allison Hedge Coke Reading with LaTasha Diggs. 2-3:30PM. October 11.
LaTasha's myspace
LaTasha's homepage
Nebraska Book Festival. October 18.
Oxnard Community College Scholars Lecture Series. November 5.
SUNY Fredonia. November 18.
December 9 Macalester College, River Reading, St. Paul.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120170200614
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27235631598&ref=ts
AWP Conference, two panels, February 11th-14th, 2009
BLACK EARTH INSTITUTE THINK TANK PANEL:
Patricia Monaghan (Chair), Annie Finch, Allison Hedge Coke, Linda Hogan, Richard Cambridge, Deborah Holton
Event Title #2: The Poet as Oracle. Oratory
Scheduled Day: Thursday, February 12
Scheduled Time: 12:00-1:15 pm
Scheduled Room: Chicago Hilton, Grand Ballroom
Title: Indigenous AWP Poets & Writers Read for the Chicago American Indian Center
Date & time: February 12th, 2009. 6-8:00 PM
Location: Chicago American Indian Center, Trickster Gallery
http://www.aic-chicago.org/trickster.html
www.aic-chicago.org
1630 W Wilson Ave
Chicago, IL 60640
(773) 275-5871
Free and open to the public
AWP Saturday February 14
Waldorf, 3rd Floor S167
Brain Power: Processing the Beautiful and the Horrendous. (Allison Hedge Coke, Peggy Shumaker, Linda Hogan, & Mira Bartok) Brain injury presents uniquely significant challenges to creative process, yet affords uniquely stimulating conceptualized possibility in a simultaneous manner. Each of the panelists included on this panel have cajoled memoir and life-story from revelations made apparent through their climb up and down the noodled rungs of brain trauma or neurological dilemma. We will consider the work presenting panelists and of Maxine Kumin and Floyd Skloot who support this panel.
Environmental Policy Panel February 18th 4pm
Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center
1600 Grand Ave.
St. Paul, MN
651.696.6249
http://www.citypages.com/events/environmental-policy-forum-will-steger-mark-dayton-allison-hedge-coke-763087/
