Sherwin Bitsui
Born1975 (age 47–48)
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

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

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

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sherwin Bitsui.
  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 audio
audio icon Sherwin Bitsui, The Poet and the Poem 2017-18
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