🔵 ✊🏽 Since there is, of course, no Inaugural Poet, here is my poem of resistance and strength I offer into this dark day. Please share it to those who need it today. Do not watch the circus. Protect your peace.
I AM MY OWN COUNTRY NOW
I wrote this poem on November 6th to find my balance and grounding, and after sharing it with the 300 people at @nickole.brown and @zoefaystindt ’s virtual @hellbenderpoets , and @james.crews.poet ’ The Monthly Pause, I was convinced that people wanted to see and hold and feel this poem for themselves. They were moved viscerally, felt power in it, all wanted a copy to hang onto.
I wanted it published on Inauguration Day to combat the lies and noise unfolding in DC today. Thank you to @markdanowsky at @oneartpoetry for giving this poem wings.
Please click on the link in my bio to hear my audio of the poem. It hits deeper. Stay strong, poets. Stay strong, friends.
💙🏛️📚💫 How it’s going. How it started. Long story, but GOOD story over on FB. Being invited to read at the National Book Festival this weekend presented one of the most meaningful FULL CIRCLE moments of my entire life. Like star-crossed poets, I reunited with @officialsandracisneros after 16 years.
Reader, SHE REMEMBERED ME.
I saw her speak at the National Book Festival opening celebration, and saw her encircled by adoring fans in the lit up beauty of The Library of Congress mezzanine, at the reception. She was a few feet away from me. Then as though magnetically drawn by spirit, she walked right by me, and I said “Sandra…” She turned to me, and I looked deep in her eyes. “I am Kai Coggin. You came to see my high school students in Houston 16 years ago. My kids wrote you poems and letters, and you came to spend the day with them, and brought a film crew. Your mother had just passed…”
“YESSS, I REMEMBER”, she said in shock. “Oh my god, you look so different!” We embraced. I showed her the picture of us together from that day with my students.
“Sandra, that day changed my students’ lives. It changed MY life. I am a poet now because of you. I have had five books published. I am the Poet Laureate of Hot Springs. I just won this fellowship from the Academy...” I said pointing to my tote bag. “They brought me here to read tomorrow at the festival.” Tears were filling both of our eyes.
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” she kept saying. Pride overflowed from her.
I pulled out Mother of Other Kingdoms to give her. “Oh please sign it for me,” she said.
I already had. I opened it and read it aloud to her.
“Because of you, I have made a life of poems.
Because of you, poems have made a life for me.
Thank you for your Radiance and Power in the world.
Eternally grateful for you, Maestra. I love you.”
She took the book into her chest. Held it tight to her heart.
Full circle. The moment of seeing her again played out exactly as I had envisioned it all these weeks leading up to DC. Finally, Sandra could reap a beautiful harvest of the many seeds that she has sown over the decades. A hero and light to so many.
16 years later. Two infinities colliding in one.
📣💙💫 I CAN FINALLY SHARE THE NEWS!!!! I have been selected as a 2024 Poet Laureate Fellow by The Academy of American Poets! The Academy’s Poet Laureate Fellowship, which is supported by the Mellon Foundation, will fund the work of twenty-two poets laureate in communities across the country. It is one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to represent my heart work on a national scale. I will have the opportunity to go to The Library of Congress and read at the 2024 National Book Festival in Washington DC at the end of this month!
🌳 My civic project SHARING TREE SPACE combines my passion for holding safe space for marginalized youth, with my knowledge and enthusiasm for the natural world. It creates a space for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ teens to be their authentic selves in a supportive, creative, and warm generative writing environment. 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.
Congratulations to all my fellow fellows! See you in Washington DC!
💚💫 HERE IS THE BIG NEWS! 💫💚
My first creative nonfiction piece was published in @time Magazine this morning as the Weekend Essay! Link in Bio! It will be IN PRINT on the newsstand June 8th! In the actual MAGAZINE! Please read my heart, click on the links, and share the piece if it moves you. 💫
Writing this was a crucible, a ring-pass-not in my evolution and breaking through, a spiritual exercise in creativity and transformation. It immersed me for the whole of April and into May, starting as a 4,000 word essay, revised, whittled down, and carefully distilled to the essence you will read here. I am really proud of this, guys. 🥹
My father was a TIME Correspondent, so this feels like a huge full circle moment for me.
Thank you infinitely to TIME Ideas Editor @devi_lockwood for your guidance, sensitivity, holding, advocacy, and care throughout this process. So thankful you are on my team and I am on yours. ❤️
#TimeMagazine #LunaMoths #WeekendEssay #Healing #Conservation
/article/2026/05/16/the-luna-moth-that-saved-me/
A new series of poetry at @whitewatertavern started last week, ten minutes to read poems that have inspired you by other poets. It was such an intellectually stimulating night. I led with “Wild Geese,” then “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” by Pablo Neruda (translated by Merwin), and ended with “You Are Who I Love” by @aracelisxgirmay . So many gorgeous poems were read. I can’t wait until the next one. Thanks for the video, @hilarnious ! 💙✨
These are the wonderful men behind @arcanumartfarm , my dear friends the Thomases. Both of their names are Thomas, and they are married and in love and the sweetest flower bears in the world. I have a poem about them that I can’t wait to share. 🥰🐻🐻
They had a beautiful pop up flower shop for Mother’s Day at @paperheartsbooks this weekend. 💐💖
@thomassepe@thomas_ofearth
💛🖤💜💰💫 CATALYZE! It was such an honor to serve as a facilitator for the 4th Cohort of CATALYZE grant recipients with Mid-America Arts Alliance last weekend. 25 incredible Central Arkansas artists were awarded a $10K unrestricted practice-based grant and this retreat was the celebration and collaboration we all needed! What a joy. 🤩
💛 Thrilled to be back again to facilitate the 4th Cohort of the CATALYZE Retreat. 25 Central Arkansas artists have been awarded a $10,000 CATALYZE grant to fund their arts practice. This money is unrestricted and practice based resulting in true freedom to use funds to catalyze creativity.
I was in Cohort 1 back in 2023, and it truly sparked my practice in such a deep way. I used half of the money to go on a month long road trip through national parks which restored my spirit and led to more poems. I am humbled to be able to mentor fellow artists and celebrate $1,000,000 pouring into Central Arkansas over the last four years. 💰💫
Thank you Windgate Foundation, and Mid-America Arts Alliance for feeding our creative fire! 🔥
