Heid E. Erdrich

Heid Ellen Erdrich (born November 26, 1963) is an Ojibwe (Turtle Mountain Band) writer and editor of poetry, short stories, and nonfiction, and maker of poem films.

Early life and education

Heid E. Erdrich was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota and was raised in Wahpeton, North Dakota.^[1] She comes from a family of seven siblings including sisters Louise Erdrich (well-known contemporary Native writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction) and Lise Erdrich, (also a published writer). Their father Ralph (German-American) and mother Rita (Ojibwe) taught at a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school^[2] for the Turtle Mountain Band.^[3] Their maternal grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, was the tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe from 1953-1959, and was instrumental in fighting against Indian termination.^[4]

Erdrich graduated from Dartmouth College in 1986 with a B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing. She earned two master's degrees from Johns Hopkins University, one in poetry (1989) and another in fiction (1990).^[5][6] Much of her career has been devoted to the teaching of writing; in 2003, she was named Mentor of the Year in for her work with the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers (An organization whose mission is to, "ensure the voices of Native American and Indigenous writers and storytellers – past, present, and future – are heard throughout the world!" ^[7][5] Erdrich has taught at Johns Hopkins, Augsburg University and the University of St. Thomas.^[8] She has also taught workshops for Native writers at Turtle Mountain Community College, along with her sister Louise and fellow Ojibwe author Al Hunter.^[8][9]

Career

Erdrich has published several volumes of poetry: Fishing for Myth (1997); The Mother's Tongue (2005); National Monuments (2008), which won the Minnesota Book Award;^[5] Cell Traffic (2012); and Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media (2017), which won the Minnesota Book Award in 2018.^[10] She has also written short stories and nonfiction. In 2016, Erdrich's "every-blest-thing-seeing-eye" was named the Winter Book by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.^[11] More recently, Erdrich has garnered attention and won awards from Co-Kisser Poetry Festival and Southwestern Association for Indian Artists for her video-poems or poem films—short, collaborative pieces treating contemporary indigenous themes including the Idle No More movement.^[12][13] One of the central collaborators in these video-poems is painter and digital media artist Jonathan Thunder.^[14] Erdrich's work has been favorably received by other prominent Native American writers, including poets Cheryl Savageau and Denise Low.^[15]

Some of her video-poem works include:

• Od’e Miikan-Heart Line (Moose version)
• It Was Cloudy
• Undead Faerie Goes Great with India Pale Ale
• Lexiconography 1
• Pre-Occupied
• Indigenous Elvis Works the Medicine Line

In addition to her own writing, Erdrich also promotes the work of other Native American authors. She is a guest editor at the Yellow Medicine Review, a journal devoted to indigenous literature and art; and she co-edited a volume of writing by Native American women with Navajo poet Laura Tohe. Her second anthology, New Poets of Native Nations, featuring Native poets who have published first books since the year 2000, was published by Graywolf Press in 2018.^[16]

With her sister Louise, she founded The Birchbark House fund at the Minneapolis Foundation, with the intent of supporting Native writing and Native language revitalization.^[5] Although Heid Erdrich does not run the bookstore, she does sell many of her published books there, and often participates in signings and events. Erdrich teaches writing in the Augsburg University low-residency MFA Creative Writing program, which is dedicated to advancing the work and careers of aspiring writers.^[17] Erdrich also directs Wiigwaas Press, which publishes books in Ojibwe (Anishinaabe), as well as films and other media.^[18] A large part Erdrich's career is dedicated to using her influence as an established poet and writer to advocate for and bolster the work of other Native artists.

In addition to being a poet, author, and teacher, Erdrich also has curated museum exhibits in the Twin-City area. One such exhibit was called Original Green, and it included work from Indigenous artists Gwen Westerman (a writer, educator, and artist), Carolyn Lee Anderson (mixed media artist),^[19] Bobby Wilson (Artist), and Gordon Coon (Self-taught artist).^[20] The exhibit was part of the larger series called Greening the Riverfront, which is a project aimed at exploring the history and transformation of the Minneapolis Riverfront. Erdrich's curation of this exhibit "fed a broader arterial network of Ojibwe and Indigenous women artists and activists who have worked to make visible the continuing claims of this and other threatened riverine systems " (Bernardin, 2017, pp. 39).^[20]

Publications

• Erdrich, Heid E. (1992). Maria Tallchief. Heinemann Library. ISBN 978-0811440998.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (1997). Fishing for Myth: Poems by Heid E. Erdrich. New Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0898231748.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (1999). "Indians Who've Been to Paris". In Blaeser, Kimberly, ed. Stories Migrating Home. Bemidji, MN: Loonfeather Press. pp. 145–156. ISBN 978-0926147089.CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
• Erdich, Heid E.; Tohe, Laura, eds. (2002). Sister Nations: Native American Women Writers on Community. Native Voices. With forward by Winona LaDuke. Minnesota Historical Society. ISBN 978-0873514279.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (2005). The Mother’s Tongue. Salt Publishing. ISBN 978-1844710607.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (2008). National Monuments. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0870138485.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (2012). Cell Traffic: New and Selected Poems. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0816530083.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (2013). Original Local: Indigenous Foods, Stories and Recipes from the Upper Midwest. MN Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0873518949.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (2018). Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-1611862461.
• Erdrich, Heid E. (2018). New Poets of Native Nations. Graywolf Press. ISBN 978-1-55597-809-9

References

Further reading

• Castor, Laura (2008). "Representing Heid Erdrich's 'Indians Who've Been to Paris': Whose Story? Whose Identity?". In Huttunen, Tuomas et. al., eds. Seeking the Self—Encountering the Other: Diasporic Narrative and the Ethics of Representation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 136–150. ISBN 978-1847186317.CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
• Low, Denise (2011). "A Mother's Poetic Tongue: Heid Erdrich's Affirming Identity". Natural Theologies: Essays about Literature of the New Middle West. Omaha: Backwaters Press. pp. 133–142. ISBN 978-1935218227.

External links

• Official website