About Tasjha
I have spent much of my life exploring what it means to be human.
My work lives at the intersection of story, creativity, embodiment, spirituality, healing, and community. Through writing, poetry, contemplative practice, teaching, and public engagement, I create spaces where people can reconnect with themselves, one another, and what matters most.
I am a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator based in Kansas City, Kansas. I hold a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Naropa University and am a 2026–2028 Charlotte Street Studio Resident.
Before becoming an artist full-time, I spent more than two decades working in social services, supporting individuals and families through some of life's most difficult transitions. That experience continues to shape my creative practice and deep commitment to compassion, justice, and human dignity.
I am also an Army veteran, Buddhist practitioner, meditation teacher, yoga educator, and lifelong student of the human experience. These paths are not separate from my creative work; they inform it.
Whether I am writing a poem, facilitating a workshop, offering a Dharma talk, leading a contemplative practice, or speaking in public, I am interested in the same questions:
How do we heal?
How do we belong?
How do we tell the truth?
How do we live with greater presence, courage, and compassion?
This website is a home for my ongoing exploration of those questions through writing, art, teaching, and community engagement.
Thank you for being here.
RACISM (that’s what the poem was supposed to be called, but instead became a rant…)
I have so much to say about racism that I really don’t know where to start. Racism…..fuck! This is my problem with writing, I cant get started. I spend most of my time writing with trying to figure out what I’m trying to write. Like I literally do this every where I go. Everytime I write or want to write I have the topic and cant get it out. Also, whenever Im not sitting at my computer or paper, I write whole poems in my head. Literally, I am a proficient poet in the shower! Then I get out of the shower and it feels like my poem went down the drain with the water.
Then I sit at my computer and think, “ok, now let’s write this poem that I said earlier in my mind in the shower, and it’s gone. And instead I sit at the computer like this. With a topic and no words for that topic! Then I walk away from the computer or my voice memo or my pad and the poem comes back!
So then I just avoid sitting to write. Because what’s the point in doing that when “off the record” is where my poems live.
I have all these events like festivals and conferences and such where I am invited to speak my poetry and perform my poetry, but I can never prepare properly because when I am intentional with my craft, I am blocked. But when I live life and interact with humans and teach my children, and teach classes and conversate with people, THAT’S when my poetry comes out!
It’s like I am frozen when I MUST work on my craft, but when my craft, which is language. I also say my superpower is language, when I must sit and be intentional with it, I cant do it. And that is frustrating as shit because I know the poems are there! I hear them myself in almost every single thing I say in just natural conversations, but I cant do it any other way, like in a structured way. I can’t DO poetry. I think I just AM poetry. And I can’t make my poetry actually come alive, it just is.
But I also can’t perform in front of people just ranting like this, or just having a conversation with someone and calling that poetry. Or maybe I can?! Fuck! I don’t know.
I think the phrase “I don’t know” is the hand around my throat.
Tasjha Wanonah Dixon is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator based in Kansas City, Kansas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University and is a 2026–2028 Charlotte Street Studio Resident. Her work explores story, embodiment, spirituality, creativity, healing, and community through poetry, teaching, contemplative practice, public speaking, and community engagement. She is an Army veteran, longtime Buddhist practitioner, and former social worker whose work centers compassion, justice, and human connection.
Service to her community 1st and foremost
She is from Wyandotte County and graduated Wyandotte High School class of 1997. Tasjha has lived and worked for many years in service to her people, as she lovingly calls them. Wyandotte county is home to vibrant communities, cultural richness, and generations of resilience. It is also statistically one of the most underserved counties in the region.
For more than two decades, Tasjha has worked directly in these communities through social services, education, and wellness programming.
All of her work has been dedicated to her community and has always been a way of honoring the lived experiences, strength, and creativity of the community that shaped this work while creating spaces where people can reconnect with themselves and each other.
Her work remains rooted in Kansas City and Wyandotte County while beautifully expanding to all parts of the country!