Wednesday, April 9th (7:00PM)

BENGAL CAFE   (IDAHO STATE UNIVERSITY)

Host: Ronald Snake Edmo
Readers: Ofelia Zepeda and more

Ofelia Zepeda has a PhD in Linguistics, is Regents Professor of Linguistics, and recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship for her work in American Indian language education, maintenance, and recovery. Zepeda is currently the Poet Laureate for the city of Tucson and is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation of southern Arizona, born and raised in Stanfield, Arizona. Zepeda published the first grammar of O'odham, A Tohono O'odham Grammar (U. of Arizona Press, 1983). She has published numerous articles on the status of Native American languages, language policy and planning, Native American linguistics, and education. Zepeda is the director of the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI), a residential Institute with an international reputation in teaching preparation for educators of Native American students. Additionally, Zepeda is the series editor of Sun Tracks, a book series publishing Native American writers, published by the University of Arizona Press. She is a published poet and essayist writing in Tohono O'odham and English. Zepeda has two books of poetry, Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (U. of Arizona Press, 1995) and Jewed I-hoi/Earth Movements (Kore, 2005), and is the co-editor of Home Places, a celebration of twenty years of publication of the Sun Tracks series. Her poetry has also appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.