Spring Break
Awiakta to deliver presidential lecture
From staff reports
Issue date: 3/29/07 Section: The Scene
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Cherokee/Appalachian author, poet, and storyteller Marilou Awiakta will be the featured speaker in the Presidential Distinguished Lecture Series at East Tennessee State University on Monday, April 9, at 7 p.m.
Her talk, entitled "Roots of Survival: The Web of Mountain Life," will take place in the ballroom on the third floor of the D.P. Culp University Center. It is free and open to the public.
"When I was young and told my mother I wanted to be a poet and writer," Awiakta says, "she would always respond, 'That's good. And what will you do for the people?' My work has been my response to her question."
Born in Knoxville and brought up in Oak Ridge, Awiakta weaves her Cherokee/Appalachian heritages with science to express her basic theme, respect for the web of life.
National and international recognition for her work began in 1978 with her first book, "Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet."
She has been featured in three television films for PBS, including "Telling Tales." Poesie Premiere, a French literary journal, published a 35-page retrospective of her poetry in its winter 1997 issue. For its millennium issue, a British Internet magazine for women, BeMe.com, commissioned an essay which Awiakta entitled "Sunrise in Cyberspace."
The United States Information Agency selected Awiakta's books for its 1985 global tour of cultural centers. Her poetry and essays have been published in numerous anthologies, and Awiakta's life and work are profiled in the Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the U.S., which also includes her essay, "Grandmothers."
Her third book, "Selu": Seeking the Corn Mother's Wisdom," was a 1994 Quality Paperback Book Club selection. The audio version was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1995. A quotation from Selu is engraved in the Riverwall of the Bicentennial Capitol Mall in Nashville, and a poem, "Motheroot," is inlaid in the Fine Arts Walkway at UCLA-Riverside.
Awiakta's work was also featured at the International Congress of Poetry in Brussels, Belgium.
Her talk, entitled "Roots of Survival: The Web of Mountain Life," will take place in the ballroom on the third floor of the D.P. Culp University Center. It is free and open to the public.
"When I was young and told my mother I wanted to be a poet and writer," Awiakta says, "she would always respond, 'That's good. And what will you do for the people?' My work has been my response to her question."
Born in Knoxville and brought up in Oak Ridge, Awiakta weaves her Cherokee/Appalachian heritages with science to express her basic theme, respect for the web of life.
National and international recognition for her work began in 1978 with her first book, "Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet."
She has been featured in three television films for PBS, including "Telling Tales." Poesie Premiere, a French literary journal, published a 35-page retrospective of her poetry in its winter 1997 issue. For its millennium issue, a British Internet magazine for women, BeMe.com, commissioned an essay which Awiakta entitled "Sunrise in Cyberspace."
The United States Information Agency selected Awiakta's books for its 1985 global tour of cultural centers. Her poetry and essays have been published in numerous anthologies, and Awiakta's life and work are profiled in the Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the U.S., which also includes her essay, "Grandmothers."
Her third book, "Selu": Seeking the Corn Mother's Wisdom," was a 1994 Quality Paperback Book Club selection. The audio version was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1995. A quotation from Selu is engraved in the Riverwall of the Bicentennial Capitol Mall in Nashville, and a poem, "Motheroot," is inlaid in the Fine Arts Walkway at UCLA-Riverside.
Awiakta's work was also featured at the International Congress of Poetry in Brussels, Belgium.
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