Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is back in Georgia to share wisdom, 'Look At This Blue'
When critically acclaimed poet, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, speaks about her life, it’s as if she’s lived the challenges and successes of at least three lifetimes.
The prolific writer and National Book Award Finalist grew up the daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper then became one herself. In her late twenties, after nearly two decades of intense physical labor, she enrolled in field worker retraining in California. That training, plus a series of sidetracks and seemingly disparate experiences, ultimately created a path for her to earn an MFA from Vermont College. Currently, Hedge Coke teaches as Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at University at University of California, Irvine.
On Friday evening, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke reads from her latest book of poetry, “Look at This Blue,” a collection of writing the author describes as a “love letter to California and call of accountability.” The work pays homage to the state’s natural beauty and diverse ecosystems while also calling attention to its sustained ecological devastation and generations of cultural genocide against indigenous peoples.
“Look at This Blue” was recognized as National Book Award Finalist in 2022.
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Born in 1958, Hedge Coke grew up in North Carolina. Her mother struggled with mental illness, and when she was finally placed into Dorothea Dix Hospital, Hedge Coke soon sought work in local fields and factories to help support the family. She was just 12-years-old.
“My father was working, and almost all that money went to support my mom in mental care,” recalled Hedge Coke. “I had to work. I did tobacco, sweet potatoes, beans, and for a while packing crackers in a packaging facility. And when I was 14, I ran away for a bit to Macon, Georgia. I liked music and wrote songs and poetry when I could and wanted to be around music. I got a job at Grant’s Lounge and worked there for nine months, underage of course. I missed all but the last two weeks of ninth grade.”
Shortly after returning to North Carolina, Hedge Cook, left school opting instead to get her GED, which opened the door for her to enroll in community education art classes at the local university. When she was 16, she got her own sharecropping allotment. An allotment meant she had some agency in the kinds of crops planted and in hiring who planted them even though “all the money is really going to the landowner, like modern day feudalism.”
When she was 16, Hedge Coke also got married, a turbulent nearly ten year relationship that imperiled the lives of her children and her, and one she tried to leave twice before successfully escaping with her children to Tennessee. Thanks in part to a little help from country singer, Tanya Tucker.
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“From my mid-teens up through when I was 28, I also worked as a musician, writing songs, singing, playing percussion in session work,” said Hedge Coke. “Grant’s Lounge introduced me to a lot of people, and I just ran with musicians when I could. I was writing songs for Johnny Paycheck’s drummer and his wife. They wanted to do a breakout album. Tanya Tucker found out about me and my situation, and allowed the kids and I to move into one of the homes on her ranch in exchange for me taking care of one of her care-taker’s children.
"We were away from violence. We were safe. And we had time to just be. And it was the first time I’d ever seen a dishwasher. I never turned it on because I was afraid I’d break it!”
Safe and nurtured within a new network of creatives, Hedge Coke found time to get involved with Nashville’s oldest and most highly regarded community theatre, Circle Players. She sat in on performance classes and started writing monologues for actors in the company. Occasionally, the instructor would ask her to read roles. He insisted that if she ever made it to California, he would recommend her to audition for Estelle Harmon’s Actor’s Workshop.
In 1985, her sister, already in California, helped Hedge Coke enroll in a field worker retraining program. The training prepared her to be a second-chance high school instructor in Venture, Ca., where Hedge Coke would help teens get on track to succeed in school and beyond. In her training she learned a great deal of California history.
“I was scared I wouldn’t do so well after training,” said Hedge Coke, “I was a high school drop out, now supposedly prepared to help students stay in school, it was a little intimidating.”
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But Hedge Coke was a natural and worked for several years within the program. In time, she got that opportunity to audition for Estelle Harmon’s Actor’s Workshop where she went on to study all aspects of film production, including scriptwriting. Scriptwriting became the gateway for a multitude of new opportunities, including a stint studying at the Old Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and two summer writing intensives at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Co.
“My friends started encouraging me to go back to school,” recalled Hedge Coke, “Because I’d always been a good writer and very creative, but I wasn’t sure about where because all I had was a GED, no undergraduate degree.”
She decided to apply to MFA programs. In 1995, she graduated from Vermont College with an MFA in Creative Writing. Currently, Hedge Coke is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at University of California, Irvine.
“Look at This Blue” was written in the first weekend she arrived in Montenegro for her 2019 Fulbright award. According to Hedge Coke, it was the culmination of 42 years living in the Golden State, learning its history, understanding the environment and knowing indigenous people’s struggles.
“I followed this jazz instrumentation I heard in my head and let the writing flow,” emphasized Hedge Coke.
“I did copy editing on the book in 2020 to address the pandemic and include a few pertinent headlines like a wolf returning to Ventura County. 'Look at This Blue,' is my love letter for (California) and call of accountability, but it’s applicable for the broader United States, a call to undo massive industrialization, to restore harmony, balance and beauty in the world. And a call to address the occupation of land, to think more about restoration.
"Lastly, I have a lot of gratitude in coming back. When I was first in Georgia, I was a run away kid working illegally in a bar. Though that shaped me and many of my life’s choices, I’ve experienced so much and gained more wisdom since that time. I’m grateful to be able to return and share a perspective that is informed from time, people and places.”
Savannah State University will be hosting poet Allison Adelle Hodge Coke April 7 for two unique events: A 12 p.m. Craft Talk at the ASA H. Gordon Library Art Gallery on SSU campus; And a 6:30 p.m. reading at The Book Lady Bookstore, 6 E. Liberty St in Historic Savannah. The events are free and open to the public and brought to the community by Estuary Creative Arts Club and the Book Lady Bookstore through the Georgia Poetry Circuit.
Founded at Mercer University in 1985, the Georgia Poetry Circuit is a consortium of ten Georgia colleges and universities working together to bring three poets of national and international reputation annually to all members’ campuses, providing an important access to the literary arts for Georgia residents across the state. Savannah State was the first and only HBCU to join the consortium in 2013.
IF YOU GO
What: Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
When: Friday at 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Book Lady, 6 E. Liberty St.
Cost: Free
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, 'Look At This Blue' in Savannah GA
