Ralph Salisbury

Ralph Salisbury (January 24, 1926 - October 9, 2017) was an American poet of Cherokee, Shawnee, Irish and English heritage.[1] His poem "In the Children's Museum in Nashville" was published in The New Yorker in 1960, making him one of the first 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 1999.[2]

Early Life

Ralph Salisbury was born in 1926 on a farm in Fayette County in northeast Iowa to a Cherokee, Shawnee, English father and an Irish American mother,[3] who raised him on a farm with no electricity or running water.[4] He survived a lightning strike at the age of 15.[5] A year after graduating from Aurora (Iowa) High School at age 16, he enlisted in the Air Force and was trained as an aerial gunman, completing his training within days of the end of World War Two.[6] The G.I Bill enabled him to enroll in the North Iowa Teachers College and, later, the University of Iowa, where he studied with Robert Lowell and earned a MFA degree.[7]

Awards
  • C.E.S. Wood Retrospective Award (2015)[8]
  • River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Book Prize (2012)[9]
  • Rockefeller Bellagio Award in fiction (1992)
  • Northwest Review Poetry Award
  • Chapelbrook Award

Bibliography

Autobiography

Published poetry collections
  • Like the Sun in Storm, Habit of Rainy Nights Press, 2012 (nominated for the Oregon Book Award).
  • Light from a Bullet Hole: Poems New and Selected, 1950-2008, Silverfish Review Press, 2009 (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize).
  • Blind Pumper at the Well, Salt Publishing, Cambridge (UK), 2008.
  • War in the Genes, Cherry Grove Editions, 2005.
  • Rainbows of Stone, University of Arizona Press, September 2000.
  • A White Rainbow, Poems of a Cherokee Heritage, Blue Cloud Press, 1985.
  • Going to the Water: Poems of a Cherokee Heritage, Pacific House Books, 1983.
  • Spirit Beast Chant, Blue Cloud Press, 1982.
  • Pointing at the Rainbow, Blue Cloud Press, 1982.
  • Ghost Grapefruit and Other Poems, Ithaca House, 1972.

Prose
  • The Indian Who Bombed Berlin, stories, Michigan State University Press, 2009.
  • The Last Rattlesnake Throw, stories, University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
  • One Indian and Two Chiefs, stories, Navajo Community College Press, 1993.

Translations

Poesie Da Un Retaggio Cherokee, Multimedia Edizioni, Salerno, Italy 1995, Tr. Prof. Fedora Giordano.

References
  1. "Ralph Salisbury", Poetry Foundation article. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/ralph-salisbury
  2. "Ralph Salisbury". The After Life. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  3. "Ralph James Salisbury (1926-2017)". oregonencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  4. "Ralph Salisbury | Creative Writing Program". crwr.uoregon.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  5. "Ralph Salisbury | Creative Writing Program". crwr.uoregon.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  6. Giordano, Fedora (2013). "Native Americans and Modern Wars in the Work of Ralph Salisbury, A Cherokee Volunteer in World War II." (PDF). La guerra e le armi nella letteratura in inglese del Novecento. Folena, Lucia, ed. Torino: Trauben. pp. 57–73. ISBN 9788866980384. OCLC 869737179.
  7. Salisbury, Ralph (1987). "Between Lightning and Thunder". I tell you now : autobiographical essays by Native American writers. Swann, Brian, and Krupat, Arnold, eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 16. ISBN 0803227140. OCLC 14411823.
  8. "2015 Special Awards Announced | Literary Arts". literary-arts.org. Retrieved 2017-10-14.
  9. Salisbury, Ralph (2012). "2012 - So Far, So Good". riverteethjournal.com/contests/previous-winners-pages/2012-so-far-so-good.


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