Tacey M. Atsitty
2022 Fellow, Indigenous Nations Poets
Dr. Tacey M. Atsitty de Gonzales, Diné (Navajo), is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta'neeszahnii (Tangle People). Her first book is Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press, 2018), and her second book is (At) Wrist (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023). She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband.
Publications
(AT) WRIST
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Publication Date: November 2023
Winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, selected by Eduardo C. Corral
“As formally seductive as it is subversive, Tacey Atsitty’s (At) Wrist is a poetry of deep longing and praise, of loss and the courage of resilience. Anchored in an intimate vision of connectedness, her syntax works its way beyond thought’s limit, setting its hook in the terrain of memory and dream. This is a book I will return to for what no other poet I know delivers with such daring and vulnerability, a poetry wherein time, body, and the natural world are presented as a singularity otherwise known as love.”
—James Kimbrell, author of Smote
we approach land and sky, kneeling together on that day
Tacey M. Atsitty melds inherited forms such as the sonnet with her Diné and religious experiences to boldly and beautifully reveal a love that can last for eternity. Celebrating and examining the depth and range of her relationships with men, Atsitty tenderly shares experiences of being taught to fish by her father, and, in other poems, reveals intimate moments of burgeoning romantic love with vulnerability and honesty. Grounded in a world both old and constantly remade, she reminds us that it is only by risking everything that we can receive more than we ever imagined.
Rain Scald
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Publication Date: February 2018
In this innovative debut collection, Tacey M. Atsitty employs traditional, lyric, and experimental verse to create an intricate landscape she invites readers to explore. Presented in three sections, Tséyi', Gorge Dweller, and Tóhee', the poems negotiate between belief and doubt, self and family, and interior and exterior landscapes.
"Her keen ear for language makes the poems sing, occasionally in formal verse or even rhyme. These poems demand multiple readings."--15 Bytes Book Award for Poetry
"She sprinkles her poems with hyphenated word pairs that spice the poems in meaningful ways. . . . She has built a solid foundation to continue growing and producing reputable work such as this volume."--Roundup
"Rain Scald is an invitation to witness the familiar and unfamiliar terrain of what is sacred of life and death. . . . It is a collection that the reader will read more than once, each time diving farther into the gorge, each time standing in the rain a bit longer."--Concho River Review
"Her work is perhaps more profoundly grounded in Western landscapes, histories, and traditions than any other work you might pick up, whether Native or non-Native."--Writing Westward Podcast
"The silence surrounding trauma lies at the heart of Rain Scald, the shattering first collection by poet Tacey M. Atsitty."--Broadsided Press