Join Heid E. Erdrich and the 2023 James Welch Prize winning poets J.K. Tsosie and Kalehua Kim for an in-person reading and celebration of their work. Presented in partnership with Poetry Northwest and In-Na-Po (Indigenous Nations Poets). Barrier-free entry for all, please RSVP below.

In-person event Friday  |  Nov 17  |  6-8pm  |  Free

About the winners:

J.K. Tsosie is Diné—Bitter Water Clan and born for the Many Goats Clan. His work has appeared in the Yellow Medicine Review and the Indiana Review. He is the winner of the Oberon Herbert Poetry Prize, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, and the James Welch Poetry Prize. He is a former MFA student in the Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico (Tiwa Land) where he is completing an MD/PhD at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

Kalehua Kim is a Native Hawaiian poet living in the Seattle area. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Denver Quarterly, Calyx, and ‘Ōiwi, A Native Hawaiian Journal.

About the judge:

2023 judge Heid E. Erdrich is a writer from North Dakota who curates art exhibits, teaches, researches, and collaborates with other artists. She’s Ojibwe, enrolled at Turtle Mountain. Her most recent book of poems is Little Big Bully, 2020, winner of a National Poetry Series award and the Rebecca Johnson Bobbit prize from The Library of Congress. 

About the Prize:

Poetry Northwest’s James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets is awarded for two outstanding poems, each written by an Indigenous U.S. poet. The prize is named for Blackfeet and Gros Ventre writer James Welch, whose early poems were featured in Poetry Northwest and who went on to become one of the region’s most important writers.

Finalists selected by poets from the board and advisory committee of In-Na-Po (Indigenous Nations Poets) with the editors of Poetry Northwest:

Ibe Liebenberg | Annie Wenstrup | Tacey Atsitty | Cheyanne Lozano | Mary Leauna Christensen | Aimee Inglis | m.s. RedCherries | Nicole Wallace