Kai Coggin (she/her) is the inaugural poet laureate of Hot Springs, Arkansas, author of five collections, and a recipient of a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She has won numerous awards and fellowships, and her poems have been published in Poetry, Academy of American Poets, Best of the Net, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Kai is a certified master naturalist, a K–12 teaching artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, and host of the longest-running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country, Wednesday Night Poetry. Learn more at www.kaicoggin.com.