Studium Generale will Celebrate National Poetry Month by welcoming Jamestown S’Klallam Elder, scholar, poet, editor, and longtime supporter of Peninsula College, Duane Niatum. We will also be celebrating a new chapbook of poetry, Sea Changes, which is available in the Peninsula College bookstore, the Bookaneer.
Dr. Niatum will offer a reading, and the event will be followed by a book signing in the PUB Gallery of Art and reception in ʔaʔk̓ʷustəƞáwt̓xʷ House of Learning, PC Longhouse.
Niatum, Seattle native and life-long resident and member of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, has been writing poems, stories and essays for over 65 years. He has been widely published in the US and abroad. He has published ten books of poems, most recently, Earth Vowels and Sea Changes. His writing has been translated into at least 14 languages.
He earned a BA from the University of Washington, where he studied with Theodore Roethke and Elizabeth Bishop, an MA from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor respectively.
Niatum’s honors include residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts and Yaddo, the Governor’s Award from the State of Washington, and grants from the Carnegie Fund for Authors and the PEN Fund for Writers. He was four times nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Returning the Gift. He has read at the US Library of Congress and the International Poetry Festival at Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
As a child and youth, he studied and absorbed S’Klallam tribal ways with his maternal grandfather. His writing is deeply connected with the Northwest coast landscape, its mountains, forests, water and creatures. The legends and traditions of his ancestors, who have long called this place home, help shape and animate his poetry. Duane has made a life-long study of art and artists, including European and American Indian art, literature and culture. Along with a rigorous pursuit of the craft of writing, he brings unique insight to his writings and publications.
The event is co-sponsored with ʔaʔk̓ʷustəƞáwt̓xʷ House of Learning, PC Longhouse and is
free and open to the public.
Join us in the Little Theater or via Zoom at https://pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/83024542567, Meeting ID: 830 2454 2567