Sherwin Bitsui

Sherwin Bitsui
Born1975 (age 48–49)
Holbrook, Arizona
OccupationWriter, painter
GenrePoetry
Notable worksFlood Song
Notable awardsAmerican Book Award;
PEN Open Book Award
Website
bitsui.com

Sherwin Bitsui is a Navajo writer and poet. His book, Flood Song, won the American Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award.

Life and Education[edit]

Bitsui was born in 1974. 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.

Published works[edit]

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.

Poetry

  • Dissolve, Copper Canyon Press. 2018. ISBN 978-1-55659-5455
  • Flood Song. Copper Canyon Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1-55659-308-6.
  • Shapeshift. University of Arizona Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-8165-2342-9.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Kenneth Lincoln (2009). Speak Like Singing: Classics of Native American Literature. UNM Press. pp. 291–. ISBN 978-0-8263-4170-9.
  2. ^ Kreutz, Doug. "Master of words". tucson.com. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  3. ^ "Sherwin Bitsui". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
  4. ^ "Sherwin Bitsui". Archived from the original on 15 April 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  5. ^ "ARTIST FELLOWSHIPS".
  6. ^ "Sherwin Bitsui First UW Fall Semester Eminent Writer in Residence | News | University of Wyoming". www.uwyo.edu.
  7. ^ "Visiting Hugo Writer University of Montana".
  8. ^ "Meet Our Faculty". mfa.sdsu.edu.
  9. ^ Teicher |, Craig Morgan. "Spring 2015 M.F.A. Update: PW Talks with Sherwin Bitsui". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2023-01-17.
  10. ^ "MFA Faculty IAIA". Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  11. ^ Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century
  12. ^ Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas
  13. ^ Elizabeth Delaney Hoffman (2012). American Indians and Popular Culture [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-313-37991-8.

External links[edit]

External audio
audio icon Sherwin Bitsui, The Poet and the Poem 2017-18