Studium Generale celebrates National Poetry Month by welcoming Jamestown S’Klallam Elder, scholar, poet, and editor Duane Niatum for a reading and book signing beginning at 12:35 p.m. Thursday, April 27.

The event celebrates Niatum’s new chapbook of poetry, “Sea Changes,” which is available in the Peninsula College bookstore, the Bookaneer.

Niatum will offer a reading, and the event will be followed by a book signing in the PUB Gallery of Art and reception in the House of Learning, PC Longhouse.

Niatum, a Seattle native and lifelong resident and member of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, has been writing poems, stories, and essays for more than
65 years. He has been widely published in the U.S. and abroad, and his work has been translated into at least 14 languages.  He has published 10 books of poems, most recently, “Earth Vowels” and “Sea Changes.”

He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington, where he studied with Theodore Roethke and Elizabeth Bishop, an master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a doctorate’s degree in American Culture from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

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 award. He has read at the Library of Congress and the International Poetry Festival at Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.

As a child and youth, Niatum 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. Niatum has made a lifelong 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 free to attend, and available on Zoom at pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/83024542567 (meeting ID: 830 2454 2567).