Luci Tapahonso

Luci Tapahonso is a Native American poet. A Navajo, she is a lecturer in Native American Studies.

Youth
Born on the Navajo Indian reservation, to Eugene Tapahonso, and Lucille Tapahonso, , Luci Tapahonso was raised in a traditional way along with 11 siblings. English was not spoken on the family farm, and Tapahonso learned it as a second tongue after her native Navajo. Following schooling at Navajo Methodist School in Farmington, New Mexico, and Shiprock High School, she began studies at the University of New Mexico. There she first met the novelist and poet Leslie Marmon Silko, who was a faculty member and who proved to be an important influence on Tapahonso's early writing. In 1982, Tapahonso gained a M.A..

She she has gone on to teach, first at New Mexico, later at the University of Kansas, and then at the University of Arizona.

Poetry
Her first collection of poetry, assembled when she was still an undergraduate, was published in 1981, but did not make much impact.

Her 1993 collection Saánii Dahataal (the women are singing), written in Navajo and English, was the first to gain her an international reputation, a reputation then cemented by 1997's blue horses rush in.

Writing
Following Silko's lead, Tapahonso's early work is often mystical and places much importance on the idea of the feminine as a source of power and balance in the world. She also frequently uses her family and childhood friends in her poetry. Several more collections followed, as well as many individual poems which have been anthologised in others' collections, activist literature, and writing in magazines.

Tapahonso's writing, unlike that of most Native American writers, is self-translated from original work she has created in her tribe's native tongue. Her Navajo work includes original songs and chants designed for performance. For this reason, her English work is strongly rhythmic and uses syntactical structures unusual in English-language poetry.

Recognition

 * Lifetime Achievement Award, Native Writers' Circle of the Americas, 2006
 * Wordcraft Circle Storyteller of the Year (Readings/Performance) Award, 1999
 * Award for Best Poetry from the Mountains and Plain's Booksellers Association, 1998
 * New Mexico Eminent Scholar award, New Mexico Commission of Higher Education, 1989
 * Excellent Instructor Award, U. of New Mexico, 1985
 * Southwestern Association of Indian Affairs Literature Fellowship, 1981