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Conference Schedule 2020

Conference Schedule 2020

Friday, February 21, 2020, 1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Everything is in Motion with Laura Tohe

Date(s): Friday, February 21, 2020, 1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Location: Heritage, University Club (view map)
Type(s): Craft Talk, Presentation
Genre and Form(s): American Indian, Creative Nonfiction, Indigenous, Poetry
Tags: Imagery

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About the Session

In the Indigenous Nation and the Navajo/Dine worldview, everything is in motion and is reflected in language that is verb-based and imagistic. This session focuses on images that speak for themselves and that open up to poetic interpretations on urgent environmental issues. How can poetic images convey the urgency of the issues that confront you on a level that comes from personal self-reflection and how does it resonate to other beings that inhabit the earth?

Meet the Presenter(s)

Photograph of Laura Tohe


Laura Tohe

Laura Tohe is Diné of the Sleepy Rock People clan and is the current Navajo Nation Poet Laureate for 2017-2019. A librettist and an award-winning poet, her books include No Parole Today, Making Friends with Water, Sister Nations, Tséyi, Deep in the Rock, and Code Talker Stories.  Her commissioned librettos are Enemy Slayer, A Navajo Oratorio, for the Phoenix Symphony on the Naxos Classical Music label and Nahasdzáán in the Glittering World for Opera de Rouen made its world premiere in 2019 in France.  She writes essays, stories, and a children’s play that have appeared in the U.S., Canada, and Europe with French, Dutch and Italian translations.  She is the recipient of the 2019 American Indian Festival of Writers’s Award, Joy Harjo & the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund Award, the Dan Schilling Public Scholar Award and was twice nominated for the Pushcart Award.


Learn more about Laura Tohe