dg nanouk okpik was born and spent much of her life in Anchorage, Alaska. She graduated from Salish Kootenai College with an AFA in Liberal Arts and Liberal Studies, and later attended the Institute of American Indian Arts, graduating with an AFA and a BFA in Creative Writing before receiving her MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast College. okpik has won the Truman Capote Literary Award, the May Sarton Award, and an American Book Award for her first book, Corpse Whale (University of Arizona Press, 2012). Her second book, Blood Snow, is forthcoming from Wave Books in the fall of 2022.
Reviews
The poems in Corpse Whale are full of the richness of Inupiaq culture and myth, and the rhythms of Arctic life. Perhaps most importantly of all, they challenge the worldview that sets humans apart from the rest of the world.
—David Farrier, literary scholar, “Books on the Deep Future”
Fearless in her craft, okpik brings an experimental, yet poignant, hybrid aesthetic to her first book, making it truly one of a kind.
—University of Arizona Press
Okpik overlaps pronouns, times, places, and creatures to build a layered consciousness that delivers an invigorating read.
—Terrain.org
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