The need to revitalize Indigenous languages is an urgent task that has attracted an increasing number of language activists to the cause and drawn the support of global organizations such as UNESCO, which has declared 2022-32 the Decade of Indigenous Languages. In response to the crisis of language endangerment, it might not seem obvious to throw poetry at the problem. Yet creative writing and other expressive arts (including music, visual arts, performance, and digital arts) are essential tools for creating and sustaining life-centered relationships with language, which is critical to revitalization. In this talk, I will be sharing poems from my English-Niimiipuutimt (Nez Perce) collection of poems aimed at revitalization and showing how books of poems can create readers and speakers by showcasing how the language thinks and moves.  

Beth Piatote is a Nez Perce writer and associate professor of Comparative Literature and Native American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Beadworkers: Stories (Counterpoint 2019), which was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, among other awards. Her areas of expertise are Indigenous literature and law; Nez Perce language and literature; Indigenous language revitalization; and creative writing.  

Ten student attendees will win copies of Dr. Piatote's collection The Beadworkers: Stories.

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