Mark Turcotte
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Mark Turcotte, Ojibwe poet
Born April 5, 1958, writer Mark Turcotte spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan. After leaving school he traveled the country, working and living on the road for nearly fifteen years.
Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993 Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city's thriving poetry scene. That summer he was winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award. Soon thereafter he was selected by Ms. Brooks as a Significant Illinois Poet and was named to the Illinois Authors Poster. During the remainder of his time in Chicago he was the recipient of a Writer's Community Residency from National Writer's Voice and was awarded the 1997 Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. He left Chicago in early 1998 to live and work in Door County, Wisconsin.
Turcotte is author of The Feathered Heart; Songs of Our Ancestors; a chapbook, Road Noise and Le Chant de la Route, a bilingual selection of his work published in Paris. His latest collection, Exploding Chippewas, is in its third printing. His poetry and fiction have recently appeared in LUNA, TriQuarterly, POETRY, Prairie Schooner,Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, The Seattle Review, Rosebud, Hunger Mountain, North Dakota Quarterly, and The Laurel Review. His poem, The Flower On, was chosen by the Poetry Society of America for inclusion in their Poetry In Motion project, which places poetry placards on public transportation in cities across the United States.
Over the past few years Mark has been awarded 1999 and 2003 Literary Fellowships by the Wisconsin Arts Board, and was honored with a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant. He has completed a National Book Foundation American Voices assignment at the Wind River Indian Reservation of Wyoming, and a Lannan Writer's Residency in Marfa, Texas. His work is included in the national high school poetry recitation project Poetry OutLoud.
After serving as the 2008-09 Visiting Native Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he has returned to Chicago where he is Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at DePaul University.
Writing available online
Boom in Ploughshares
Call in Ploughshares
Tell in Ploughshares
Battlefield in Poetry Out Loud
The Flower On from the Poetry Society of America
Awards
First Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, 1993.
Community Arts Assistance Program Grant from the City of Chicago, 1995.
Writer's Community Residency from National Writer's Voice, 1997.
Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, 1997.
Wisconsin Arts Board Literary Fellowship, 1999.
2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant.
Wisconsin Arts Board Literary Fellowship, 2003.
American Voices Residency from the National Book Foundation, 2004.
Books by Mark Turcotte
Exploding Chippewas, Northwestern University Press.
Feathered Heart, Michigan State University Press.
Road Noise, Mesilla Press.
Songs of Our Ancestors, Childrens Press.
Anthologies
Power Lines: A Decade of Poetry From Chicago's Guild Complex, Michael Warr, Julie Parson-Nesbitt, Luis J. Rodriguez (Editors), Tia Chucha Press.
Smokestacks & Skyscrapers: An Anthology of Chicago Writing, David Starkey, Richard Guzman (Editors), Wild Onion Books.
The POETRY Anthology, 1912-2002, Jospeh Parisi, Stephen Young (Editors), Ivan R. Dee Publishing
"Poetry Daily: 366 Poems", Boller, Selby, Yost (Editors), Sourcebooks Inc.
Interviews
Interview with Mark on Dakota Datebook, North Dakota Public Radio (audio available)
See Also
A short biography from the Internet Public Library's Native Author Project.
This page is part of the Storytellers: Native American Authors Online project.
