Sherwin Bitsui is a

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

writer and poet. His book of poems, ''Flood Song'' (2009), 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

; his mother was (Bitter Water Clan), while his father was (Many Goats Clan). 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. In 2012, he was honored with an NACF Artist Fellowship in Literature. He has served in visiting faculty positions, including distinguished visiting, Eminent Writer for the University of Wyoming, Visiting Hugo Writer University of Montana, and San Diego State University, where he has been on creative writing faculty since 2013. Since 2013, he has served on the faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program. He currently lives in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

Writing

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'' and ''Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas''.
Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas
' A common theme within Bitsui's poems is the exploration of different values, concepts and ideas become when experienced in

as opposed to English. 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

Collections

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References

External links

Profile at The Whiting Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bitsui, Sherwin 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