Post by Okwes on Dec 19, 2006 12:45:29 GMT -5
Writers' award a milestone in Navajo poet's laboring career
By DOUG KREUTZ
Arizona Daily Star (AP)
Saturday, November 18, 2006 9:00 AM CST
www.azdailysun.com/articles/2006/11/18/news/state/20061118_arizon\
a_news_30.txt
<http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2006/11/18/news/state/20061118_arizo\
na_news_30.txt>
Native American poet Sherwin Bitsui poses for a portrait at Gates Pass
in Tucson, Ariz., Tuesday Oct. 31, 2006. The Navajo writer from the
reservation community of White Cone in Northeastern Arizona now lives in
Tucson and last month won $40,000 as one of 10 recipients of the 2006
Whiting Writers' Awards. (AP Photo/Arizona Daily Star, Greg Bryan) **
TUCSON
Poet Sherwin Bitsui says this about the raw material of his work: "Words
are sacred."
And this:
"In a poem, every word matters."
Bitsui wove his sacred words, one by precise one, into a book of poems
called "Shapeshift." The book, published by the University of Arizona
Press in 2003, and Bitsui's growing body of poetry in magazines and
journals brought him a $40,000 prize last month as one of 10 recipients
of the 2006 Whiting Writers' Awards.
"I feel very humbled," says Bitsui, 31, a Navajo from the reservation
community of White Cone in northeastern Arizona. "It was a wonderful
ceremony, a great honor ... The money offers me time to work on my next
collection."
A Tucson resident for the past five years, Bitsui traveled to New York
City for the awards ceremony on Oct. 25.
It was a milestone in a writing career spawned in the poet's Navajo
homeland, honed at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe,
N.M., and brought to fruition with the publication of "Shapeshift."
"One of the things that makes Sherwin's work so exceptional is that it's
truly grounded in his traditional Navajo culture," says poet Arthur Sze,
who was one of Bitsui's instructors at the institute.
"He's an intense imagist," says Sze, who now serves as the poet laureate
of Santa Fe. "The lyricism and immediacy of the world is always there in
his work. He's engaged in a kind of ceremony with language."
That ceremony -- or lyric love affair -- with language is evident on
almost every page of "Shapeshift."
Words, Bitsui says, must not only sing. They must carry a message. His
words often speak of interfaces -- of the hard edge between the natural
world and technology, between native ways and modern life.
Bitsui traces the spirit of his work to "a very free childhood in a
beautiful, open landscape."
His mother, of the Navajo Bitter Water Clan, was a teacher's aide. His
father, of the Many Goats Clan, was a carpenter.
"They always pushed for education," says Bitsui, who speaks the Navajo
language but writes in English. "I come from a huge family, and the
support of the family is immense."
As a student in middle school and high school, which he attended in
Holbrook, Bitsui found that he had a way with words and a love of
language.
"I come from a family of ranchers and cowboys, and I'm allergic to hay
and horses," he says. "But I had this writing."
After reading some poetry by Allen Ginsberg and others in his late
teens, Bitsui tried his hand.
"I had no idea what I was doing," he recalls, "but it just felt right. I
wrote a poem about the land -- about a landscape being cut up by
fences."
Following a stint in a community college, Bitsui was accepted at the
Institute of American Indian Arts and studied there from 1997 to 1999.
It was during this period, in 1998, that Bitsui wrote what he calls "my
first real poem."
That work, "The Northern Sun," along with a poem titled "Chrysalis,"
became the "pillars" of the book, Bitsui says.
Bitsui's poems found homes in journals such as American Poet and The
Iowa Review. He received a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for
Poetry, a Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship and the University
of Arizona Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Award.
"Sherwin really embodies poetry as an investigative art form," says
Frances Sjoberg, literary director at the University of Arizona Poetry
Center. "It's an art form that uses language to explore or give some
definition to mystery."
It's still all a bit of a whirlwind to Bitsui, who works a day job with
the state to help pay the bills as he toils at a new collection of poems
-- sometimes taking months to complete a single work.
He says he makes time for a relationship with his girlfriend and work
with Native American literacy programs such as ArtsReach in Tucson.
But the fact remains that he is a poet. This means that -- like many
other poets -- he creates strings of words that sometimes don't make
immediate, clear sense to those of us who are not poets.
"In our world," Bitsui replies, "everything is handed to us. It's all so
convenient.
"I think the poet has to be able to allow the reader to reach the poetic
moment. It's showing you a different hue of the same color. I think a
good poet will leave you with questions -- but also offer you sustenance
for your hard work. Poetry is give and take."
By DOUG KREUTZ
Arizona Daily Star (AP)
Saturday, November 18, 2006 9:00 AM CST
www.azdailysun.com/articles/2006/11/18/news/state/20061118_arizon\
a_news_30.txt
<http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2006/11/18/news/state/20061118_arizo\
na_news_30.txt>
Native American poet Sherwin Bitsui poses for a portrait at Gates Pass
in Tucson, Ariz., Tuesday Oct. 31, 2006. The Navajo writer from the
reservation community of White Cone in Northeastern Arizona now lives in
Tucson and last month won $40,000 as one of 10 recipients of the 2006
Whiting Writers' Awards. (AP Photo/Arizona Daily Star, Greg Bryan) **
TUCSON
Poet Sherwin Bitsui says this about the raw material of his work: "Words
are sacred."
And this:
"In a poem, every word matters."
Bitsui wove his sacred words, one by precise one, into a book of poems
called "Shapeshift." The book, published by the University of Arizona
Press in 2003, and Bitsui's growing body of poetry in magazines and
journals brought him a $40,000 prize last month as one of 10 recipients
of the 2006 Whiting Writers' Awards.
"I feel very humbled," says Bitsui, 31, a Navajo from the reservation
community of White Cone in northeastern Arizona. "It was a wonderful
ceremony, a great honor ... The money offers me time to work on my next
collection."
A Tucson resident for the past five years, Bitsui traveled to New York
City for the awards ceremony on Oct. 25.
It was a milestone in a writing career spawned in the poet's Navajo
homeland, honed at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe,
N.M., and brought to fruition with the publication of "Shapeshift."
"One of the things that makes Sherwin's work so exceptional is that it's
truly grounded in his traditional Navajo culture," says poet Arthur Sze,
who was one of Bitsui's instructors at the institute.
"He's an intense imagist," says Sze, who now serves as the poet laureate
of Santa Fe. "The lyricism and immediacy of the world is always there in
his work. He's engaged in a kind of ceremony with language."
That ceremony -- or lyric love affair -- with language is evident on
almost every page of "Shapeshift."
Words, Bitsui says, must not only sing. They must carry a message. His
words often speak of interfaces -- of the hard edge between the natural
world and technology, between native ways and modern life.
Bitsui traces the spirit of his work to "a very free childhood in a
beautiful, open landscape."
His mother, of the Navajo Bitter Water Clan, was a teacher's aide. His
father, of the Many Goats Clan, was a carpenter.
"They always pushed for education," says Bitsui, who speaks the Navajo
language but writes in English. "I come from a huge family, and the
support of the family is immense."
As a student in middle school and high school, which he attended in
Holbrook, Bitsui found that he had a way with words and a love of
language.
"I come from a family of ranchers and cowboys, and I'm allergic to hay
and horses," he says. "But I had this writing."
After reading some poetry by Allen Ginsberg and others in his late
teens, Bitsui tried his hand.
"I had no idea what I was doing," he recalls, "but it just felt right. I
wrote a poem about the land -- about a landscape being cut up by
fences."
Following a stint in a community college, Bitsui was accepted at the
Institute of American Indian Arts and studied there from 1997 to 1999.
It was during this period, in 1998, that Bitsui wrote what he calls "my
first real poem."
That work, "The Northern Sun," along with a poem titled "Chrysalis,"
became the "pillars" of the book, Bitsui says.
Bitsui's poems found homes in journals such as American Poet and The
Iowa Review. He received a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for
Poetry, a Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship and the University
of Arizona Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Award.
"Sherwin really embodies poetry as an investigative art form," says
Frances Sjoberg, literary director at the University of Arizona Poetry
Center. "It's an art form that uses language to explore or give some
definition to mystery."
It's still all a bit of a whirlwind to Bitsui, who works a day job with
the state to help pay the bills as he toils at a new collection of poems
-- sometimes taking months to complete a single work.
He says he makes time for a relationship with his girlfriend and work
with Native American literacy programs such as ArtsReach in Tucson.
But the fact remains that he is a poet. This means that -- like many
other poets -- he creates strings of words that sometimes don't make
immediate, clear sense to those of us who are not poets.
"In our world," Bitsui replies, "everything is handed to us. It's all so
convenient.
"I think the poet has to be able to allow the reader to reach the poetic
moment. It's showing you a different hue of the same color. I think a
good poet will leave you with questions -- but also offer you sustenance
for your hard work. Poetry is give and take."