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Native American poet, filmmaker to present talk at UH-Maui College

Hedge Coke covers the creative ways to find balance in innovation, activism

ALLISON HEDGE COKE, Will present a talk Feb. 20

The University of Hawaii-Maui College will host award-winning poet, writer, editor and filmmaker Allison Hedge Coke for a presentation titled “Measuring Up” at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 20 in ‘Ike Le’a 144.

The event is free and open to the public.

Hedge Coke will discuss a movement for understanding a person’s measure in life through contemplation, dedication, active living and application of creative ways in balancing innovation and activism.

She will be reading and speaking in a series of public events as part of the Spring 2020 Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals program established in 2005. The program honors U.S. Sen. Inouye and his wife for their lifetime of public service.

The chair is housed in the Department of American Studies in the College of Arts and Humanities and the William S. Richardson School of Law at UH-Manoa.

In addition to her presentation Thursday evening, Hedge Coke also will be leading a writing workshop with students at UH-Maui College titled, “Writing the Beautiful and the Horrendous.”

A professor at the University of California at Riverside, Hedge Coke is of mixed indigenous and European ethnicity, and many of her writings explore her heritage and coming of age working in the fields, factories and waters.

Hedge Coke is “among the most important environmental and social justice poets, thinkers and activists of our time,” said UH-Manoa Associate Professor Brandy Nalani McDougall, who originally is from Kula,

Hedge Coke and McDougall are co-teaching Indigenous Lands and Waters at UH-Manoa this semester.

“Her literary contributions of poetry and other writings and documentary filmmaking over the past 25 years, as well as her work to create spaces for marginalized voices and to protect plants, animals and sacred sites, have been tremendous both in scope and impact,” McDougall added. “Our communities will gain so much from her being here and sharing her thoughtful, generous and healing work.”

Some of Hedge Coke’s completed poetry collections include “Year of the Rat”; “Dog Road Woman”; “Off-Season City Pipe”; “Blood Run”; “Streaming”; “Burn,” a memoir; “Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer,” an animated poem; and “Icicles,” a play.

As an editor, her works include “Ahani: ToTopos,” “Sing: Poetry of the Indigenous Americas,” “Effigies,” “Effigies II” and “Effigies III.” She recently guest-edited World Literature Today.

Hedge Coke currently is working on a few projects, such as a film titled “Red Dust: Resiliency in the Dirty Thirties”; a new CD; and a community project, Among the Chaparral, as well as new poems and prose.

Her recent honors include an honorary credential from China for Excellence in Foreign Poetry, the First Jade Nurtured SiHui Female International Poet in 2018, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas in 2017, the Library of Congress Witter Bynner Fellow in 2016, and Distinguished Writer in Residence at UH-Manoa in 2014.

For more information, contact Jocelyn Romero Demirbag of the UH Foundation at 984-3471.

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