Sherwin Bitsui
Sherwin Bitsui | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1975 (age 50–51) |
| Occupation | Writer, painter |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Notable works | Flood Song |
| Notable awards | American Book Award; PEN Open Book Award |
| Website | |
| bitsui | |
Sherwin Bitsui is a Navajo writer and poet. His book of poems, Flood Song (2009), won the American Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award.
Life and education
[edit | edit source]Bitsui was born in 1975. He is originally from Whitecone, Arizona. He is Navajo; his mother was Todichʼíiʼnii (Bitter Water Clan), while his father was Tłʼízíłání (Many Goats Clan).[1][2]
He holds an AFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing Program. He is the recipient of the 2000-01 Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, the 1999 Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, a Soul Mountain Residency, a Lannan Foundation Literary Residency Fellowship and a 2006 Whiting Award.[3] In 2012, he was honored with an NACF Artist Fellowship in Literature.[4][5] He has served in visiting faculty positions, including distinguished visiting, Eminent Writer for the University of Wyoming,[6] Visiting Hugo Writer University of Montana,[7] and San Diego State University,[8] where he has been on creative writing faculty since 2013.[9] Since 2013, he has served on the faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program.[10]
He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Writing
[edit | edit source]Sherwin has published poems in American Poet, The Iowa Review, Frank (Paris), Lit Magazine, and elsewhere.
His poems were also anthologized in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century[11] and Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas.[12]
A common theme within Bitsui's poems is the exploration of different values, concepts and ideas become when experienced in Navajo as opposed to English.[13]
His book, Flood Song, was published in 2009 and won an American Book Award in 2010. His most recent book of poetry, Dissolve, was published in 2018.
Published works
[edit | edit source]Collections
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References
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- ^ Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century
- ^ Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas
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External links
[edit | edit source]| External audio | |
|---|---|
 Sherwin Bitsui, The Poet and the Poem 2017-18 |
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- 1975 births
- Living people
- 21st-century American poets
- American Book Award winners
- Institute of American Indian Arts alumni
- Native American poets
- Navajo painters
- Navajo male writers
- Navajo writers
- People from Fort Defiance, Arizona
- People from Holbrook, Arizona
- 20th-century Native American artists
- 21st-century Native American artists
- Navajo male artists
- Navajo artists
- Navajo born to the Bitter Water Clan