Sherwin Bitsui (Navajo)

Sherwin Bitsui is a poet of exceptional depth whose visceral work is richly steeped in surrealistic imagery – the high desert, sage and piñon, black-eyed doves, the bricks and gasoline of the city – these sensuously dark psychic descriptions all inhabit his haunting verses. His work interprets cultural iconography with both literal and coded Diné translations, chants, and songs and through this intuitive work, he has been said to transform English into his Native tongue. His readings are thought provoking, casting himself in the role of messenger, the poetic phrases and Neruda-like metaphors lingering mysteriously, almost subconsciously provocative. He says too of his writing, “Though I write from a Dine’ space, I also must acknowledge the wide ranging influences that help pattern my work. I’m not entirely secular in my experience—my work is also a product of its time”.  He expands his practice experimentally having worked with filmmaker Gabriel Lopez-Shaw (Pyramid Lake Paiute) on an experimental film based on his poem “Chrysalis”; and he has collaborated with the performance artist Reona Brass (Cree) on an installation/performance piece titled “Dear Reservation”.  He holds a BA from University of Arizona and an AFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Sherwin has received considerable recognition very early in his writing career and has emerged as a preeminent Native letters voice. He is the recipient of a Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, an Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency, a 2008 Tucson MOCA Local Genius Award, a 2010 PEN Open Book Award, and an American Book Award for his book Flood Song.

Shapeshift, published by the prestigious University of Arizona Press, is his first book. In review, “Linking story, history, and voice, Shapeshift is laced with interweaving images that speak to the rich diversity of contemporary Diné writing with complexities of tone that shift between disconnectedness and wholeness, irony and sincerity”. His second book of poetry, Floodsong (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), was similarly highly praised. He is currently working on two collections of poetry continuing processes developed in Flood Song.