Understory: The Sharing Tree Space Anthology
SHARING TREE SPACE is a project created by the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Hot Springs Arkansas, Kai Coggin. Coggin was one of 22 poets across the nation to be awarded a $50,000 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellowship in 2024. Sharing Tree Space was generously funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Academy of American Poets, with special deep thanks to community partner Dr. Margo McGehee Kelly.
Sharing Tree Space involves partnering with Hot Springs National Park Rangers, Interpreters, and scientists to lead BIPOC and LGBTQ+ high school students on educational wonder hikes focusing on specific natural world elements and writing poetry in the wild with them. The mission of this project is to engage them with the natural world, to facilitate community, and for marginalized youth to be seen, respected, held, and heard in their own personal authentic voices and valid experiences, thus combating societal and legislative erasures
This anthology captures the poetry which was born from the hikes and photos of the community of students, ROOTS, Rangers, all under the guidance of Hot Springs Poet Laureate Kai Coggin. This is more than an anthology; it is an enduring reminder of the power of poetry.
You have no idea how healing of a space you created with Sharing Tree Space! It was truly amazing to see that queer people have a space to exist and grow old in this world. Being in nature and meeting Melon, Madi, Samm, Em, Geo, and witnessing the queer friendships and joy between them has been a life-changing experience! My life is more magical knowing people like you. Thank YOU so much!
Being a part of Sharing Tree Space healed a part of me I thought would take longer to mend. I had felt disconnected from the Earth for months but just as the trees have an underground root system, I have found my connections, outstretched branches, my roots - me, a ROOT. A safe space where every person has a voice and is seen for their individuality and who they truly are. Sharing Tree Space brought us all together by nature, surrounded by the company of trees, leaves, moss, birds, goats, fungi, the wind, the stars, and the universe. Learning about the world around us helps us to better understand ourselves and those around us - a reminder that we are made of love, stardust and poetry.
While I only spent a few hours with Kai, the ROOTS, and the students, it was abundantly clear to me the strength and the value this program was adding to all of their lives. It was an honor to be a part of a program like Sharing Tree Space and I hope we are able to see more programs like this emerge in the future especially with potentially uncertain times for queer people in the United States on the horizon. As a student, I would have loved to have had a program like Sharing Tree Space and to have had mentors like the ROOTS and Kai in my life. I believe that the opportunity for personal growth, exploration and community building that Sharing Tree Space allows, is of great benefit to the students and their communities.
Meet the Editor
Kai Coggin (she/her) is the inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, AR and a recipient of a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship for her project Sharing Tree Space. She is the author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions, 2024) and Mining for Stardust (FlowerSong Press 2021). Coggin is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, an Interchange Grant Fellow with the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry.
Coggin was awarded the 2023 Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award for Visionary Service, and the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award for Arts in Education. She was twice named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times, and nominated for Arkansas State Poet Laureate and Hot Springs Woman of the Year. Her fierce and tender poetry has been nominated six times for The Pushcart Prize, and awarded Best of the Net in 2022. Ten of Kai’s poems are going to the moon with the Lunar Codex project, and on earth they have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Poets.org, Prairie Schooner, Best of the Net, Cultural Weekly, SOLSTICE, The Night Heron Barks, Sinister Wisdom, Lavender Review, and elsewhere. Coggin is Editor at large at both SWWIM and Terrain.org, and is Associate Editor at The Rise Up Review. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
www.KaiCoggin.comwww.KaiCoggin.com
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