Writing Her Own Story
By Sarah Wengert
Photo by Ron Coleman,C4 Photography
Zedeka Poindexter works in words—whether for corporations like Ford and Pfizer, the nonprofit Nebraska Writers Collective (NWC), or at events like Omaha Poetry Slam. Despite her vast range and experience as a wordsmith, the winding road of her career path comes down to one initial influence: Her Gran. Poindexter said she’s a reader and a writer because of her grandmother.
“I was raised by readers,” she said. “My grandmother always had about five books going at once, and it was a range—like, a heaving bodice romance novel, Lee Iacocca’s autobiography, and The Invisible Man. The books she gave me are among my most prized possessions, kept in a special place in my dining room.”
Poindexter, who was proudly born and raised in North Omaha, added one special book to that hallowed shelf this pas August when she met Nikki Giovanni at the Girls Inc. Lunch for the Girls event.
“She signed one of her books for me, so that’s now on the shelf with my grandmother’s books,” she said, excitedly recounting the luncheon and her meeting with the literary legend.
“First of all, she’s 81 years old, from the south, so she has zero (expletive) left. One of the first things she does on stage is start ‘Ego Tripping’ (a beloved 1972 Giovanni poem),” says Pointdexter. “I thought I was absolutely going to implode in my seat.”
When Poindexter taught the written and spoken word for Upward Bound, the first writing class she taught, her students memorized two pieces: Rudyard Kipling’s “You Will Be a Man My Son” and Giovanni’s “Ego Tripping.”
“The fact that the first time I got a formal job teaching poetry, I was teaching her work, and then I got to meet her was pretty spectacular,” she said.
In addition to writing and performing her own poetry, Poindexter is currently co-executive director at Nebraska Writers Collective (NWC). This is the latest step on a path that included caring for her sick grandmother—who passed in 1999, when Poindexter was 24—moving to California, then Colorado, then Omaha, then Colorado again, and finally, home again in 2005.
While she found her work in corporate health communications for Pfizer interesting and says it taught her important lessons about language, she eventually followed a strong instinct to exit corporate America in 2022. In 2021, while in her second fellowship at The Union for Contemporary Arts, after an impactful online workshop about intention in one’s arts journey, she made the call. And once again, her grandmother’s influence was felt.
“I thought, ‘You know what, my grandmother’s birthday was June 22, and I think June 2022 is a good time to be done.’ I’m not going to be corporate anymore. I just knew that’s what I wanted to do, and it was time,” Poindexter says.
Having a meaningful milestone tied to her grandmother allowed her to take a deep breath and move past any doubt.
“I’d spent my entire life scared of being a writer—thinking I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t have the time, trying to shoehorn writing in between other things and exhausting myself because I wasn’t fully dedicated . . . not having time to finish projects because I was busy working, wife-ing, and mothering, and that all took priority over something that was so core to me,” Poindexter said. “I just decided I was done.”
Perhaps proof of the power of grandmothers, Poindexter’s NWC co-director contract ultimately began on June 1, 2022. She says she and her co-director counterpart, Gina Trinisi, “are different humans,” but it makes for a great leadership team.
“She’s a Capricorn, I’m a Gemini. She’s 29, I’m almost 49,” Poindexter says. “We do not match, but we work really well together. I’m proud of what we’ve built, in part, because we attack things so differently. I love what we’re doing—starting new initiatives and programs, and reinvigorating things.”
NWC is most known for its All Writes Reserved youth spoken word festival (previously Louder Than a Bomb), a statewide youth poetry slam that’s served 45 schools across Nebraska in its history. Each fall, NWC matches a teaching artist with a school, and that teaching artist mentors their kids until March, when the program culminates with the March Madness of Poetry.
“What’s beautiful about that program is it’s competitive-ish, but the kids cheer for each other, and I’ve never seen a negative response to the competitive aspect,” Poindexter said. “Everybody wishes the next person the absolute best and exchanges phone numbers.”
Statistics from a 2023 NWC survey of All Writes Reserved student participants showed 84 percent of students ended the program believing they “have something worthwhile to say,” and 78 percent reported forming connections they wouldn’t have otherwise.
NWC also facilitates Writer’s Block (a program with writers living in incarceration), the Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate, the North Omaha Writers Workshop, monthly Omaha Poetry Slams, and other programs, prizes and events. All NWC programs, and the organization in general, focus on engaging diverse voices throughout Nebraska for the good of the state’s people, literary scene and legacy.
“I’m proud we get to work with so many different writers,” Poindexter said. “In the beginning, it was poets. Now, it’s also comedians, emcees, essayists, creative nonfiction writers and fiction writers. I get to spend my day working in service of the arts. That’s not a bad life.”
Poindexter is also mother to 9-year-old Zoey, something she keeps front of mind when working with Nebraska’s youth. When she speaks of her daughter and the generations of Black women before them both, it’s easy to picture the young Poindexter of yesteryear in the image she paints of Zoey.
“She’s a very sweet, soft, artistic soul . . . and I’m one, too, so I understand exactly what’s happening in those moments of sensitivity. I’ve just built a veneer she hasn’t developed yet—and to a certain extent, I don’t know if I want her to.”
Poindexter has written ever since girlhood. She knew nothing of state poets, poet laureates or slams back then, but writing ran through her veins nonetheless. As an indoor, “happily nerdy” child, she entered school poetry contests, had a poem published in her middle school yearbook, dabbled in journalism in high school and always wrote poetry. But she never took a creative writing class nor saw it as a career or focus; it was just something she always did. Her first degree path in college was actually physical therapy/athletic training, though she was never an athlete herself. Poindexter ultimately earned her bachelor’s degree in communication at UNO.
Her first rhetoric and composition class was a revelation—as was witnessing Patricia Smith’s performance of Skinhead on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. It’s a breathtaking persona poem from the perspective of a white supremacist, read by Smith, a small Black woman.
“I saw that piece and literally sat up on my couch thinking, ‘I don’t know what that is, but I need to go do that,’” she said.
Since that fateful night, Poindexter has made more than good on that declaration. Multigenerational families, the Black experience (especially during the Great Migration) and geographical roots are central themes in her work.
“Some of the stories are painful; some are magical and transcending,” she said. “Telling stories about the place and the people I’m from is an honor.”
In 2021, her stunning one-woman show Sense of the Pandemic combined essays and poetry into a time capsule of sorts about her experience as a Black woman during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each segment of the show focuses on one physical sense, an idea inspired by Poindexter’s fascination with people losing their sense of smell and other faculties from the virus. Sensory kits—a candle, body butter, a piece of candy and other such elements—were distributed to a virtual audience.
“I was really proud of that,” Poindexter says. “I am, like everybody else, exploring how to navigate a life where a lot of different pieces of me need to be different things throughout the day. I’m doing my best to create the best art possible, and to believe I can make that art by finding and believing in my voice. Not always an easy path.” W