Allison Hedge Coke

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Contents 1 Allison Hedge Coke, Huron/Metis;Cherokee/Creek heritage author 2 Reviews 2.1 Fourth Genre 2.2 Booklist 2.3 Others 3 Writing available online 4 Internet Web Literary Publications/Broadsides/Brochures 5 Awards 6 Books written or edited by Allison Hedge Coke or containing her work 6.1 Anthologies 6.2 Interviews or Autobiographical Essays

Allison Hedge Coke, Huron/Metis;Cherokee/Creek heritage author

Allison Adelle (A. A.) Hedge Coke is an American Poet and Canadian Poet of First Nations / Indigenous ancestry (NGE). Hedge Coke was born in 1958 (August 4), Amarillo, Texas, and is of Wendat|Huron; Metis; Tsalagi|Cherokee; Mvscogee|Creek; French Canadian; Portuguese; Irish; Scot; English descent. Hedge Coke grew up primarily in North Carolina, with extended childhood stays in Canada, and on the Great Plains. She is an original, now Distinguished Fellow of the Black Earth Institute Think-Tank and is a MacDowell Colony for the Arts, Weymouth Center, and Great Plains Center Fellow. Hedge Coke holds The Distinguished Paul W. Reynolds and Clarice Kingston Reynolds Endowed Chair in English, and is an Associate Professor of Poetry & Creative Writing in the English Department of the University of Nebraska, Kearney. 2007-2012. She holds an MFA from Vermont College (additional post-graduate work), a professional performing arts certificate from Estelle Harmon's Actor's Workshop, and an AFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She was a fellow at Naropa Institute (now University) in the summers of 1992 and 1993 and has served as a returning faculty member for the summer MFA/BFA intensive at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She is the author of five books: Dog Road Woman (American Book Award); The Year of the Rat; Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer (AIROS Book of the Month); Off-Season City Pipe (WC Writer of the Year), and Blood Run (WC Writer of the Year) and the play Icicles.

Hedge Coke has edited eight volumes and most recently edited Effigies a collection of two Inupiat and two Hawaiian Native poets (d. g okpik, Cathy Rexford, Brandy McDougall, and Mahealani Wendt), for Salt Publications. She was the acquisition editor for Bone Light by Orlando White for Red Hen Press, guest-edited To Topos from Oregon State University and created the first inclusive Indigenous Western Hemisphere (from the Arctic to the Antarctic Circles) volume of poetry--Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry 2007. She has also edited From the Fields, an anthology of writing by migrant and rural children in California, under a Lannan Grant for California Poets In The Schools, Coming to Life, poems for peace in response to 9-11 from students in the Sioux Falls School District, and They Wanted Children, an anthology of Native American, Sudanese, Latino, Asian, African American and European descent students' stories and poems of adversity and strife untold in the mainstream high school they attend. She also co-edited Voices of Thunder and It's Not Quiet Anymore. She is currently editing two new anthologies: Working Clans, a collection of writing representing Native work ethic and contemporary labors, and Radio Wave Mama, a collection of work from writers whose parents suffer mental illness.

Hedge Coke formerly directed the Writer's Voice at the Sioux Falls YMCA and co-directed the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts, was an National Endowment for the Humanities Appointment as Visiting Distinguished Professor for Hartwick College (2004) and MFA faculty member at Northern Michigan University.

Allison presents Literary performances, readings, workshops, seminars, talks, motivational presentations, and lectures and performs in-services on enhancing writing skills, NAS and Youth-at-Risk education. She created and organized an online mentorship project in literary arts for incarcerated youth in South Dakota through ArtsCorr (LAMYISD@yahoo.com). Allison was named the Mentor of the Year in 2001 by Wordcraft for this important work. She created and hosted the first-ever all-Indian WPBA sanctioned event, the Northern Plains Intertribal Poetry Bout -- Joe Hipp Championship Tribute, High Plains Bookfest, summer 2004. Henry Real Bird contended with Luke Warm Water. Kim Blaeser, Diane Glancy, Mardell Plain Feather, Cassandra Walks Over Ice, Barney Old Coyote, Phoenicia Bauerle and the Night Hawk Singers participated in making this event a Gazette front page and public radio hit in Billings.

Reviews

Fourth 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 Genre

Booklist

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 Monaghan

Others

"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

"This fine collection of poetry by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke makes a ladder of songs. The ladder balances between the well-grooved symbol of a warrior on horseback running into the wind for battle, to a Native mother feeding her children when there is nothing. She, too, is a warrior. The poem 'The Change' stands out as a classic of contemporary Native literature. What is presented in this evocative poetry is not a 'struggle for dignity,' but a dignity for struggle."—Joy Harjo

Poets & Writers

For some writers, community service comes naturally. But for those of us who are accustomed to guarding our precious writing time with our lives, the very thought of adding another activity—no matter how worthy—is daunting. We watch in awe as fellow writers teach, mentor, and travel to remote locations to give workshops to populations ranging from the incarcerated to the homeless to senior citizens. Why do they do it? How do they find the time and emotional energy? Is it possible to serve others without neglecting one's own work?

... For award-winning activist and poet Allison Hedge Coke, mentoring helps heal the wounds of the past. As a Native American who has experienced homelessness, family mental illness, and poverty, Hedge Coke is active in mentoring and teaching Native Americans on reservations, in urban settings, and in prisons in South Dakota and other states. From this work has come several published anthologies representing migrant and rural children, Native American youths, and disabled youths, as well as recognition as Mentor of the Year in 2001 by the Wordcraft Circle of Writers and Storytellers. She is currently working on collections by children of schizophrenics and members of the Native American working class.

"These are all places of renewal for me, as I give back to where I came from myself," says [Hedge] Coke, who was mentored herself as a teenager by a Native American poet [musician]. "Whether my students are aware of how much we share or not, I know. It gives me a personal truth to return to my own beginnings and do some good work there." The work is fraught with challenges, including burnout. But every once in a while there are "those moments when something clicks and a student erupts into a writer from a nonwriter. It is always magic. There is nothing like it."

Allison's exhibitions and Gallery Shows

Allison's Journal Publications

Allison's Recordings and Related Activities

Writing available online

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Off-Season, Allison's blog.

Memory from Salt Publishing.

Street Confetti from Xcp: Streetnotes Winter 2003.

Eternity Safeway from Xcp: Streetnotes Winter 2003.

Clowns Crowned: in-RAGE from Xcp: Streetnotes Winter 2003.

Writers Segment (2/5/01) on South Dakota Public Radio [RealAudio]

Writers Segment (2/6/01) on South Dakota Public Radio [RealAudio]

House Blend (9/17/00) on South Dakota Public Radio [RealAudio]

House Blend (7/30/00) on South Dakota Public Radio [RealAudio]

House Blend (7/2/00) on South Dakota Public Radio [RealAudio]

James Thomas Stevens & Allison Hedge Coke on UN Radio (RealAudio)

Internet Web Literary Publications/Broadsides/Brochures

• “Clan Sister,” “Esoterica,” and “Memory.” In Oregon Literary Review, Vol. 2, No.2. Fall 2007. [Poetry.]

• “America, I Sing Back,” “Memory,” “Skeletons,” “Ghosts,” and “The Mounds.” selected for broadside prints from the 3rd World Poetry Festival in Venezuela. Caracus, Tucupita, and Maturin. 2006. [Poetry.]

• “Looters,” “River,” “The Dove,” and “Baggage.” in Political Affairs Online Magazine. August 2006, March 2006, and the November/December 2005, Editions, 2005-2006. [Poetry.]

• “Street Confetti,” and Off-Season City Pipe (book volume), selected for inclusion for the Academy of American Poets National Poetry Month. 2005. [Poetry.]

• “Last Lunar Eclipse, 2004.” E-verse, Milkweed Publications. 2005. [Poetry.]

• Dennison University, Ohio mounds series poems in the Earthworks festivities. (Brochure.) October 2005. [Poetry.]

• “Street Confetti,” Eternity Safeway” and “Clowns Crowned in-RAGE.” on Xcp: Streetnotes biannual on-line literary magazine. David Michalski, Editor. UC Davis. Davis, CA. Winter 2003. [Honored by a link from Art in the Public Interest.] [Poetry.]

• “Shapings,” “Gore,” and “Swarming.” with “civic duty as a private citizen statement” and "The Tanks Come Blasting," 2003, on Poets Against the War, on <poetsagainstthewar.org> & 2004 <voicesinwartime.org>. Also on UK site of PAW. [Poetry.]

• “Ghost Deer.” Libraries of South Dakota, David Allen Evans, SD Poet Laureate, Ed. Displayed in SD Libraries, including the State Library in Pierre, SD. 2003 (Broadside.) [Poetry.]

• Excerpts from Dog Road Woman on Poetry of the 20th Century. 2002. [Poetry.]

• "Drunk Butterflies" and "Eternity Safeway." on Native Realities juried e-journal magazine. Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. Lee Francis IV, Editor. 2001. [Poetry.]

Awards

Allison has been named the Writer of the Year in Poetry in 2005 by the Wordcraft Circle for her book Off Season City Pipe from Coffeehouse Press.

Allison was appointed a National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, in 2004.

Allison was presented the Mayor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2003 in Sioux Falls. She received a South Dakota Arts Council Artist Fellowship, and an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation in 2002.

Allison was named the Mentor of the Year in 2001 by the Wordcraft Circle for her work with incarcerated Native youth. She was a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship finalist in 1999, and held a South Dakota State Arts Council, Individual Artist Project Grant in 1999. Allison was a Macdowell Colony Resident Fellow in Petersborough, New Hampshire, in fall 1996. She was a summer writing fellow at Naropa University in 1992 and 1993.

Allison's poetry volume Dog Road Woman received a 1998 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, was a finalist for the 1998 Patterson Prize, given by the Poetry Center' at Passaic County Community College (NJ) and was a finalist for the NWCA First Book Award in Poetry. She received nominations for the Pushcart Prize in both 1999 and 2000. She received an Abiko Quarterly editor's choice award in 1995.

Allison is also the winner of the Doris Gregory Memorial Scholarship and Creative Writing Award by the New Mexico Press Women's Association '93; the Zora Neale Hurston Scholarship Award '93; the Creative Writing Departmental Award (poetry; fiction; playwriting; non-fiction essay) by the Institute for American Indian Arts '93; the Naropa Poetry Prize by the Institute for American Indian Arts and Red Elk Scholarship by the Naropa Institute '92; and an Associate Residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts '92.

Books written or edited by Allison Hedge Coke or containing her work

Effigies, Salt Publishing (poems) [anthology].

Blood Run, Salt Publishing (poems) [free verse play].

Off-Season City Pipe, Coffee House Press (poems). WCC Writer of the Year.

Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer, University of Nebraska Bison Books (memoir). AIROS Book of the Month.

• Billings Gazette review, 4/25/04

Dog Road Woman : Poems, Coffee House Press. American Book Award.

Year Of The Rat, (Chapbook) Grimes Press.

From the Fields, Editor, California Poets in the Schools Press.

Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry, Editor, Oregon State University.

They Wanted Children, Editor, Sioux Falls School District Press.

Coming to Life, Editor, Sioux Falls School District Press.

It's Not Quiet Anymore: New Work from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Co-Senior Editor with Heather Ahtone, Institute of American Indian Arts Press.

Voices of Thunder: New Work from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Co-Editor with Heather Ahtone, Institute of American Indian Arts Press.

Anthologies

Looking at the Words of Our People : First Nations Analysis of Literature, Jeannette C. Armstrong (Editor), Theytus Books.

Gatherings - Vol. VI, 'Metamorphosis' Manifesting and Respecting Diversity in Our Transformation, Don Fiddler & Linda Jaine (Editors), Theytus Books.

"Voices of Thunder", works included in this book were juried and selected by co-editors. Santa Fe, NM. Pg. 77-79. 1992. [Nonfiction.]

Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Culture and Identity, Elena Featherstone (Editor), Crossing Press.

Subliminal Time, O - Four, Leslie Scalapino (Editor), O Books.

Neon Pow-Wow: New Native American Voices of the Southwest, Anna Lee Walters (Editor), Northland Pub.

It’s Not Quiet Anymore, works included in this book were juried and selected by co-editors. Santa Fe, NM. Pg. 155. 1993. [Nonfiction.]

"Subliminal Time". Leslie Scalapino, Ed. O Books. Oakland, CA. Pg.35-44. 1993. [Poetry.]

Gatherings, Vol IV", Regeneration: Expanding the Web to Claim Our Future, Don Fiddler (Editor), Penticton: Theytus Books.

"Gatherings - Vol. V", Celebrating the Circle: Recognizing Women and Children in Restoring the Balance, Beth Cuthand & William George (Editors), Theytus Books.. Pg. 202-204. 1994. [Nonfiction.]

"Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Cultures, and Identity". Elena Featherston, Ed. The Crossing Press. Freedom, CA. Pg. 145-147. 1994. [Poetry.]

"Tree in the Sky", San Francisco, California: California Poets in the Schools Press. San Francisco, CA. Pg. 93-94. 1995. [Poetry.]

"Gatherings VII". Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm & Jeanette Armstrong, Ed. Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. Pg. 33-45. 1996. [Fiction.]

"Listen to the Wild", California Poets in the Schools Press. San Francisco, CA. 1996. [Poetry.]

"American Fiction" 8th Edition. Alan Davis, Ed. New Rivers Press. Morehead, MN. Pg. 142-148. 1996. [Fiction.]

"Speaking for the Generations and the Land". Simon Ortiz, Ed. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ. Pg. 92-116. 1997. [Nonfiction.]

"Reinventing the Enemy’s Language". Joy Harjo, Ed. University of Arizona Press. University of Arizona. Phoenix, AZ. Pg. 325-331. 1997. [Poetry.]

"Visit Teepee Town". Diane Glancy and Mark Nowak, Ed. Coffee House Press. Minneapolis, MN. Pg. 155-187. 1999. [Poetry.]

"Gatherings XII", En'owkin center/Theytus Books. Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. Pg. 198-200. 2001. [Nonfiction.]

“Poets Against the War", Selected poems published hard copy from the website, The Nation Press Sam Hamill, Ed. Pg. 101. 2003. [Poetry.]

“Prometeo: Memorias" XV Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellin. Medellin, Columbia. Pg. 149-152. 2005. [Poetry.]

"Washington & Lee New Medicines anthology". Deborah Miranda, Ed. Washington & Lee. Lexington, VA. 2005. [Poetry.]

"To Topos International Journal" "Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry Anthology". Eric Dickey and Joseph Krause, Ed. Oregon State University. Corvallis, OR. December 2006/January 2007. [Poetry.]

"French Connections: Poetry from the Franco-American Experience", Louisiana Literature Press. Christine Gelineau and Jack. B. Bedell, Ed. 2007. [Poetry.]

"Wom-Po Anthology", Red Hen Press. October 2007. [Poetry.]

"Prometeo Memories, Prometo, Medellin, Colombia. 2008. [Poetry]"

Interviews or Autobiographical Essays

AIROS August 2004 Book of the Month: Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer [RealAudio]

Food for Thought Interview (3/19/04) on South Dakota Public Radio

Writers Giving Back, Pass the Torch, by Catherine Wald, Poets and Writers (May 2004)

Quiet Mountain Essays Interview with editor Suzanne Sunshower

Speaking for the Generations : Native Writers on Writing, Sun Tracks Vol. 35, University of Arizona Press.

French Connections, Christine Gelineau, editor.

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