Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is an American poet and editor. Her debut book, Dog Road Woman, won the American Book Award and was the first finalist of the Paterson Poetry Prize and Diane DeCora Award. Since then, she has written five more books and edited eight anthologies. She is known for addressing issues of culture, prejudice, rights, the environment, peace, violence, abuse, and labor in her poetry and other creative works.[1]
Coke was born in Amarillo, Texas, to a family she claims were of French-Canadian, Alsatian, English, Irish, Welsh, Portuguese, Cherokee, Huron, and Muscogee descent. She self-identifies as Native American despite not being enrolled in any Native tribe, and claims that her paternal grandfather Vaughn "refused tribal enrollment for himself and his children" to protest the "diabolical Dawe's Act".[2] However, enrollment on the Dawes Rolls was not optional. Hedge Coke had a very non-traditional childhood educational experience, dropping out of high school to work in the crop fields to provide for herself. She then completed her GED at age 16 where she shortly after began taking community education classes at North Carolina State University, studying photography, traditional arts, and writing. Hedge Coke studied performance, directing and tech at Estelle Harmon's Actors Workshop, and went on to earn an AFAW in creative writing from the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA summer exchange fellow at Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Program), and an MFA in poetry from Vermont College.[3]
Hedge Coke's work Blood Run, a free verse poetry collection of 66 poems, was inspired by the traditions of the Native American Mound Builders and their earthworks. Blood Run revives the history of the sites giving profound voice to humans, animals, plants and structures, also with political-ecological hope for the future to preserve ancient spiritual places.[10] The poems show a mathematical patterning based on the numbers four, three and seven and on the sequence of the first 24.primes.[11] In Hedge Coke's Streaming, the poem, America I sing you back was born not out of anger but concern for what she saw happening in the United States 12 years ago, alarmed by the greediness of politicians to take natural resources from the land. America I sing you back can be interpreted as an alternate view to the identity of America, following in the footsteps of Walt Whitman's poem, I Hear America Singing and Langston Hughes, I too.[10]
Discographyedit
Streaming, Long Person Records (Yvwi Gvnahita), with trio project Rd Klā (album)[12]
Bibliographyedit
Burn (Illustrated by Dustin Mater), MadHat Press, 2017 (Poems) ISBN 1941196454
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.[25]
Voices of Thunder: New Work from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Co-Senior Editor with Heather Ahtone, Institute of American Indian Arts Press.
They Wanted Children, editor, Sioux Falls School District Press. Sioux Falls School District (South Dakota) Sioux Falls School District (South Dakota) Poems and stories of coping. The Lost Boys from Sudan, American Indian students, Immigrant...
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. Institute of American Indian Arts Press.[25]
Voices of Thunder: New Work from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Co-Editor with Heather Ahtone, Institute of American Indian Arts Press.[25]
^ ab"Effigies II, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Laura Da', Ungelbah Davila et al., Poetry by individual poets, 9781844718955 | buy from Salt". Salt Publishing. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^Coke, Allison Adele Hedge (2004). Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer: A Story of Survival. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. p. 5. ISBN 9780803215276.
^Harball, Elizabeth (January 16, 2018). "Allison Adelle Hedge Coke". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
^"Visiting Writers and Distinguished Writers in Residence – Department of English, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa".
^"University of Nebraska Biographical Information Link for Endowed Chair".
^"Allison Hedge Coke". english.hawaii.edu. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^"Lenoir-rhyne Writing Program Director Discusses the Writing Life". Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe. n.d. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
^"MFA Nation 2016: A Compendium of Graduate Programs in Creative Writing" (PDF). Poets & Writers. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
^"Allison Hedge Coke". Department of Creative Writing. University of California, Riverside. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
^ abc"Blood Run, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Poetry by individual poets, 1844712664 | buy from Salt". Salt Publishing. Archived from the original on April 28, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^"Rd Klā & Allison Adelle Hedge Coke | Streaming". CD Baby Music Store. 2014. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
^"Streaming | Coffee House Press". coffeehousepress.org. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^"Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer – University of Nebraska Press". nebraskapress.unl.edu. Archived from the original on October 16, 2014. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^ ab"Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas". uapress.arizona.edu. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^"Effigies, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, dg nanouk okpik, Cathy Tagnak Rexford & Brandy Nalani McDougall, Poetry anthologies (various poets), 9781844714070 | buy from Salt". Salt Publishing. Archived from the original on April 2, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^ ab"To Topos, Oregon State University". Archived from the original on August 22, 2006. Retrieved March 17, 2009.
^"Off-Season City Pipe | Coffee House Press". Archived from the original on May 11, 2013. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
^ ab"Welcome to California Poets in the Schools". cpits.org. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^"Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer – University of Nebraska Press". nebraskapress.unl.edu. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^"Book of the Month 2004: August 25 – Book of the Month: "Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer"". Native America Calling. Archived from the original on June 22, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^ abComing to Life: allison Adelle Hedge Coke: 9780972237000: Amazon.com: Books. Sioux Falls School District. 2002. ISBN 0972237003.
^"Dog Road Woman | Coffee House Press". Archived from the original on April 30, 2013. Retrieved October 29, 2014.
^"NCW—Selected Publications of". mockingbird.creighton.edu. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
^ abchttp://www.spdbooks.org/Products/14794/its-not-quiet-anymore-new-work-from-the-institute-of-american-indian-arts.aspx[permanent dead link]
^Hedge Coke, Allison (2019). Effigies III. UK: Salt Publications. ISBN 9781784631833.
^"http://www.saltpublishing.com/writers/profile.php?recordID=208324 Archived 2014-11-08 at the Wayback Machine"