Sherwin Bitsui & Kenzie Allen: Online-Only
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Sherwin Bitsui & Kenzie Allen: Online-Only

Past Event: Friday, November 5, 2021

At lectures.org

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Although this event has passed, you can still purchase tickets now through Friday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m. (PT). The event will be viewable until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, November 12.

The inaugural James Welch Prize reading, celebrating two Indigenous poets from the U.S., is presented in partnership with Hugo House and Poetry Northwest, featuring judge Sherwin Bitsui and winner Kenzie Allen. Although this event has passed, you can still purchase a digital pass to view it through Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. (PT). You’ll have until later that evening, 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 12, to watch it.

Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, and is the author of three collections of poetry: Dissolve (Copper Canyon, 2018), Flood Song (Copper Canyon), and Shapeshift (University of Arizona Press). He is Diné of the Todí­ch’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tlizí­laaní­ (Many Goats Clan), and holds an AFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing Program and a BA from University of Arizona in Tucson. His recent honors include a 2011 Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship and a 2011 Native Arts & Culture Foundation Arts Fellowship.

Bitsui is also the recipient of 2010 PEN Open Book Award, an American Book Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. Bitsui has published his poems in Narrative, Black Renaissance Noir, American Poet, The Iowa Review, LIT, and elsewhere. Steeped in Native American culture, mythology, and history, Bitsui’s poems reveal the tensions in the intersection of Native American and contemporary urban culture. As an ecopoet, his poems are imagistic, surreal, and rich with details of the landscape of the Southwest.

Kenzie Allen is an Assistant Professor of English at York University, specializing in Creative Writing and Indigenous Literatures. Her research centers on documentary and visual poetics, literary cartography, and the enactment of Indigenous sovereignties through creative works. She is a descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Kenzie received her PhD in English & Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was an R1-Advanced Opportunity Program Fellow, Chancellor’s Award recipient, and a TA in American Indian Studies. She received her MFA in Poetry from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at University of Michigan (2014), and her BA in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis (2010).

Allen’s poems have appeared in places like The Iowa Review, Indiana ReviewNarrative MagazineBlack Warrior ReviewBoston ReviewBest New Poets 2016, and she is the managing editor of Anthropoid and the founder of Apiary Lit.

Previously, Kenzie has contributed to technology startups as a web, product, and ui/ux designer. She has served as a Student Representative for the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology, and as an archivist and volunteer fire lookout for the Sand Mountain Society.

Originally from West Texas, she now shares time between Trondheim, Norway, and the Oneida reservation in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She is at work on her first manuscript in poetry, a multimodal chapbook of Texas poems, and a memoir about blood quantum. Find Allen’s work here.

Jennifer Elise Foerster, our Q&A moderator for the evening, is the author of two books of poetry, Leaving Tulsa (2013) and Bright Raft in the Afterweather (2018), and served as the Associate Editor of the recently released When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. She is the recipient of a NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford. Her poetry has recently appeared in POETRY London, The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review and other journals. Jennifer currently teaches at the Rainier Writing Workshop and is the Literary Assistant to the U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. Foerster grew up living internationally, is of European (German/Dutch) and Mvskoke descent, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. She lives in San Francisco.

Event Details

lectures.org

Know Before You Go

Need access to the digital event?

All tickets have been emailed for the James Welch Prize event, so be sure to check your inbox for an email from boxoffice@lectures.org. Call us at 206-621-2230 x10 if you can’t find them.

For online attendance: Your e-tickets, which come attached in a PDF with your ticket order confirmation email, contain your digital access instructions. The night of your event, return to lectures.org/event/james-welch-prize and enter the password where prompted. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. (PT) and will be available for viewing for a week after the event.

SAL will also send an email the day of the event, containing the same information. If you have opted out of receiving SAL emails, you will miss this important information—please email us at boxoffice@lectures.org and we will assist you.

Have a question for the speakers?

Want to ask Sherwin Bitsui or Kenzie Allen something? Send your question to SAL at sal@lectures.org—it might be asked onstage!

Books

Open Books will have copies of Bitsui’s work available for purchase on their website.

Accessibility

Closed Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where captioning displays the words that are spoken or sung at the bottom of the video. Captioning is available for all online events; click the “CC” button to view captions during the event.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals at online events. To make a request for ASL interpretation, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select Sign Language Interpretation from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process, and we will reach out to you to confirm details. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services for online events, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at boxoffice@lectures.org, or Monday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at 206.621.2230×10. For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility.

Sponsors

Poetry Series Sponsor

Charles B. & Barbara Wright