Marilou Awiakta

Marilou Awiakta
Marilou Awiakta
Born	January 24, 1936; Knoxville
Occupation	Poet, author
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Tennessee B.A. magna cum laude, in English and French, 1958
Children	Three children

Marilou Awiakta (born January 24, 1936 in Knoxville, Tennessee) is a poet whose perspective fuses her Cherokee, Scots-Irish, and Appalachian heritage with experiences of growing up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on the atomic frontier.[1] She is internationally known for her poetry and cultural essays.

Biography and career

Marilou Awiakta is the seventh generation of her family to grow up in Appalachia, mostly in East Tennessee. Since 1730, her family has lived in the mountainous area of the state.[2]

Awiakta graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1958 receiving a B.A. magna cum laude, in both English and French.[3] She worked as a civilian liaison officer and translator for the U.S. Air Force at Laon-Couvron Air Base, France from 1964-1967 where her husband, Dr. Paul Thompson, was based.

She lives in Memphis, Tennessee, where she has worked in the Arts-In-Schools program and formed poetry workshops in the Women's Prison. She was co-founder of the Far Away Cherokee Association which is now the Native American Intertribal Association.[4][5] She has conducted many programs and writers' workshops nationwide, including Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Alaska, Massachusetts, Kentucky, New York, and California.

In July 2014, editors in France featured her work in www.recoursaupoeme.fr

Awards

Distinguished Tennessee Writer Award, 1989 [6]
Appalachian Heritage Writer's Award, Shepherd College, 2000 [7]

Books

bich man haha iran and nopu Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet. Memphis: Saint Luke's Press, 1978. Rpt. Bell Buckle, TN: Iris Press, 1995. 71 pp. Rpt. 2006 Pocahontas Press, 65 pp. $14.95 illustrated with Afterword by Parks Lanier, Jr. Now available from Aleex Thompson Conner, Marketing Dimensions, 1528 Britling Drive, Knoxville, TN 37922, telephone 865-691-6083. Poetry that weaves together Cherokee history, the legend of Little Deer, memories of growing up in Oak Ridge (where the atom was split in the 1940s), and thoughts on family, society, and the land.
Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery: A Child's Christmas in Memphis, 1833. Memphis: Saint Luke's Press, 1983.
Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother's Wisdom. Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1993. A blend of story, essay, and poetry. Cherokee legends and images from the double weave of Cherokee baskets point us toward preserving a nurturing relationship between humanity and Mother Earth, by instilling appreciation for the earth and applying Native American philosophies to modern problems.

Analysis

Awiakta's poetry is analysed at length in Our Fire Survives the Storm by Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation).

gollark: Which they can *have*, because they have a *superintelligent AI*.

gollark: This is the claim I have heard, yes.

gollark: With sufficiently good imaging and such, I imagine you could probably look for signs of wiped out life or megastructures or whatever and determine if there actually is dark-forest-type stuff going on.

gollark: You could probably determine if that was the case, and I can think of ways around that sort of problem right now.

gollark: Not the worst possible solution, but certainly a bad one.

References

http://www4.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A12%5B%5D
Kelley, Saundra Gerrell (2011). Southern Appalachian Storytellers: Interviews with Sixteen Keepers of the Oral Tradition. Jefferson: McFarland Publishing. p. 33.
Notable Alumni: Marilou Awiakta (1958) | Torchbearer Archived 2010-06-02 at the Wayback Machine
Marilou Awiakta: Cherokee/Appalachian Poet and Essayist Archived 2010-06-02 at the Wayback Machine
Marilou Awiakta (Marilou Thompson) (b. 1936)
http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=A048%5B%5D
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2010-02-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)