Stilwell High students (left to right) Tyla, Reagan and Jimma stand in front of the Field Museum in Chicago.

Faith Phillips

Sharing Indigenous Oklahoma stories at Field Museum exhibit ‘really inspiring’ for Stilwell students

  • Robby Korth
  • Kateleigh Mills

StateImpact is on a listening tour with Oklahoma’s youth. And we’ve brought along our microphones.

Reagan and Jimma are students at Stilwell High School. 

Earlier this year, the pair, along with their classmate Tyla, got to share some of the poetry they worked on at the Field Museum in Chicago as part of the Native Truths exhibit.

“Just bringing something from Oklahoma and putting it in this big place for people to see it, it’s just really inspiring,” Reagan said. “Tyla and Jimma, their poems really are… really beautiful and they really inspire me also to keep creating things not only like poetry and writing and stuff.”

Both credited their creative writing teacher Faith Phillips for connecting them to the experience. Hear some of their poetry below.

“Blackbird Flats,” by Jimma:


“Control,” by Reagan:

This conversation was produced by grants from the Education Writers Association and America Amplified. 

The mission of the Education Writers Association is to strengthen the community of education writers and improve the quality of education coverage to better inform the public. 

The America Amplified initiative using community engagement to inform and strengthen local, regional and national journalism. America Amplified is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.