Ralph Salisbury

Ralph Salisbury (1926-2017). Courtesy Poetry.us.com.

Ralph J. Salisbury (January 24, 1926 - October 9, 2017) was an American poet of Cherokee and Irish American heritage.

Life

Salisbury was born in Arlington, Iowa. His father was Cherokee and his mother was Irish American. He grew up on the family farm in Iowa, without electricity of running water, hunting and trapping for meat and pelts.

He joined the Air Force at 17 and, through service in World War II, earned 6 years of university education.

Salisbury earned an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa (where he studied under Robert Lowell) in 1951.

Since 1950, he has worked at writing, editing, translating, and teaching writing and literature. He taught at the University of Oregon from 1960 to retirement. Before that he taught at Drake University, Texas A & M University, and the University of Frankfurt/Main (Germany). For 6 years he was the editor-in-chief of Northwest Review.

Salisbury was professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. He is the author of 2 books of short fiction and 7 books of poetry. He has also co-translated 2 books by Sami (Lapp) poet Nils-Aslak Valkeappaa.

Recognition

His poem "In the Children's Museum in Nashville" was published in The New Yorker in 1960, putting him among the earliest Native American poets to receive national attention. His autobiography So Far So Good won the 2012 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. His book Light from a Bullet Hole: Poems new and selected was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

Awards

• Rockefeller Bellagio Award in fiction
• Northwest Poetry Award
• Chapelbrook Award
• Fulbright Professor, Germany (1983, 2004, 2005), Norway (1994)
• Amparts Lecturer, India, 1987

Publications

Poetry

• Ghost Grapefruit, and other poems. Ithaca, NY: Ithaca House, 1972.
• Pointing at the Rainbow: Poems from a Cherokee heritage. Marvin, SD: Blue Cloud Quarterly Press, 1980.
• Spirit Beast Chant. Marvin, SD: Blue Cloud Quarterly Press, 1982.
• Going To the Water: Poems of a Cherokee heritage, Eugene, OR: Pacific House Books, 1983.
• A White Rainbow: Poems of a Cherokee heritage . Marvin, SD: Blue Cloud Quarterly Press, 1985.
• Rainbows of Stone. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2000.
• War in the Genes, and other poems. Cincinnati, OH: Cherry Grove Collections, 2006.
• Blind Pumper at the Well: Poems from my 80th year. Cambridge, UK: Salt Publishing, 2008.
• Light from a Bullet Hole: Poems new and selected, 1950-2008. Eugene, OR: Silverfish Review Press, 2009.
• Like the Sun in Storm: Poems. Portland, OR: Habit of Rainy Nights Press, 2012.

Short fiction

• One Indian and Two Chiefs: Short fiction. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press, 1993.
• The Last Rattlesnake Throw, and other stories. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
• The Indian Who Bombed Berlin, and other stories. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2009.

Non-fiction

• So Far So Good (memoir). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2013.

Translated

• Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, The Trekways of the Wind (translated with Lars Nordström & Harald Gaski). Vaasa, Finland: DAT, 1994.
• Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, The Sun, My Father (translated with Lars Nordström & Harald Gaski). Vaasa, Finland: DAT, 1998.

Edited

• Three Northwest Poets: Albert Drake, Lawson Inada, Douglas Lawder. Madison, WI: Quixote Press, 1970.
• A Nation Within: Contemporary native American writing. Hamilton, NZ: Outrigger, 1983,

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See Also

• Native American poets
• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• Ralph Salisbury at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Ralph Salisbury at YouTube

Books

• Ralph J. Salisbury at Amazon.com

About

• Ralph Salisbury, 1924- at Native American Authors
• Ralph Salisbury Official website

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