FREE
Free Write with
Kai Coggin
Self-Portrait with Joy, A Generative
Writing Workshop
*** All Times are listed in EST ***
With the world in its constant state of chaos and turmoil, it is an act of self-love, even an of rebellion, to carve out space for JOY. It is a delicate balance to experience the pain of the outer world, while still finding the glimmers of light of our inner worlds. Guided by notable ushers of the luminous, Ada Limón, Ross Gay, Danusha Lameris, Li-Young Lee, Ellen Bass, Diane Seuss, Mary Oliver and others, attendees will walk the delicate tight-rope of their lyrical words, which lift the readers into a space of exhale and gratitude. In this generative workshop, we will close read and discuss a selection of poems, write together, and share. Attendees will leave with a new draft of a reflective Self-Portrait with Joy.
Kai Coggin (she/her) is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Mining for Stardust (FlowerSong Press 2021) and INCANDESCENT (Sibling Rivalry Press 2019). She is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council and Arkansas Learning Through the Arts, an Artist Leadership Fellow with the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. Recently awarded the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award, 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 powerful poetry has been nominated four times for The Pushcart Prize, as well as Bettering American Poetry 2015, and Best of the Net 2016, 2018, 2021— awarded in 2022. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Best of the Net, Cultural Weekly, SOLSTICE,Bellevue Literary Review, TAB, Entropy, SWWIM, Split This Rock, Sinister Wisdom, Lavender Review, Tupelo Press, and elsewhere. Coggin is Associate Editor at The Rise Up Review, and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Women’s Writing Guild. She lives with her wife and their two adorable dogs in the valley of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.