Sherwin Bitsui

{{Infobox writer

| name = Sherwin Bitsui

| image = Sherwin Bitsui4081965.JPG

| imagesize =

| caption =

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1975}}

| birth_place = Holbrook, Arizona

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality =

| ethnicity =

| occupation = Writer, painter

| period =

| genre = Poetry

| subject =

| notableworks =Flood Song

| influences =

| influenced =

| spouse =

| awards = American Book Award;
PEN Open Book Award

| website = {{URL|http://bitsui.com/}}

}}

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

Bitsui was born in 1974. He is originally from Whitecone, Arizona. He is Navajo; his mother was {{spell-nv|Todichʼíiʼnii}} (Bitter Water Clan), while his father was {{spell-nv|Tłʼízíłání}} (Many Goats Clan).{{cite book|author=Kenneth Lincoln|title=Speak Like Singing: Classics of Native American Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AVsMVEeY4Q0C&pg=PA291|year=2009|publisher=UNM Press|isbn=978-0-8263-4170-9|pages=291–}}{{cite web |last1=Kreutz |first1=Doug |title=Master of words |url=https://tucson.com/lifestyles/master-of-words/article_ad1b316c-699a-5ce3-906b-0d32a30043b5.html |website=tucson.com |date=10 November 2006 |access-date=3 December 2021}}

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.{{cite web|title=Sherwin Bitsui|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sherwin-bitsui|publisher=Poetry Foundation|accessdate=9 April 2014}} In 2012, he was honored with an NACF Artist Fellowship in Literature.{{cite web|title=Sherwin Bitsui|url=http://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/individual/2012/sherwin-bitsui|accessdate=22 July 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140415063117/http://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/individual/2012/sherwin-bitsui|archivedate=15 April 2014}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/programs/fellowship-program|title=ARTIST FELLOWSHIPS}} He has served in visiting faculty positions, including distinguished visiting, Eminent Writer for the University of Wyoming,{{Cite web|url=http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2013/08/sherwin-bitsui-first-uw-fall-semester-eminent-writer-in-residence.html|title=Sherwin Bitsui First UW Fall Semester Eminent Writer in Residence | News | University of Wyoming|website=www.uwyo.edu}} Visiting Hugo Writer University of Montana,{{Cite web|url=http://news.umt.edu/2014/03/031214hugo.php|title=Visiting Hugo Writer University of Montana}} and San Diego State University,{{Cite web|url=http://mfa.sdsu.edu/faculty.htm|title=Meet Our Faculty|website=mfa.sdsu.edu}} where he has been on creative writing faculty since 2013.{{Cite web |last=Teicher {{!}} |first=Craig Morgan |title=Spring 2015 M.F.A. Update: PW Talks with Sherwin Bitsui |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/mfa/article/65874-spring-2015-m-f-a-update-pw-talks-with-sherwin-bitsui.html |access-date=2023-01-17 |website=PublishersWeekly.com |language=en}} Since 2013, he has served on the faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program.{{cite web|title=MFA Faculty IAIA|url=http://www.iaia.edu/academics/mfa-in-creative-writing/mfa-faculty/|accessdate=22 July 2014}}

He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.

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[https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/book/legitimate-dangers-american-poets-new-century Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century] and Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas.[http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid2299.htm 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 Navajo as opposed to English.{{cite book |author=Elizabeth Delaney Hoffman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UjQ8VSkAGX4C&pg=RA1-PA151 |title=American Indians and Popular Culture [2 volumes] |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-313-37991-8 |pages=151}}

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 =

{{cite book|title=Shapeshift|url=|year=2003|publisher=University of Arizona Press|isbn=978-0-8165-2342-9|last=Bitsui|language=en|author-mask=2}}
{{cite book|title=Flood Song|url=|year=2009|publisher=Copper Canyon Press|isbn=978-1-55659-308-6|last=Bitsui}}
Dissolve, Copper Canyon Press. 2018. {{ISBN|978-1-55659-5455}}