Denise Sweet is an Anishinaabe poet. From 2004 to 2008, she served as the Wisconsin Poet Laureate.

Background[edit]

Sweet grew up in Minnesota and is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.^[1]

Career[edit]

Sweet was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and taught creative writing, literature, and mythology at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She also taught a travel seminar in the Yucatán Peninsula and Guatemala where she did fieldwork among the Maya peoples.

Awards and honors[edit]

Sweet has won several awards for her poetry including the Diane Decorah Award, the Posner Award, the Woman of the Year Award from the Wisconsin Women's Council, and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award for Poetry. In 2004 she became the Poet Laureate of Wisconsin.

Books by Denise Sweet[edit]

• Palominos Near Tuba City: New & Selected Poems, Holy Cow! Press, April, 2018
• Songs for Discharming, Greenfield Review Press
• Days of Obsidian, Days of Grace, Poetry Harbor Press
• Know By Heart, Rhiannon Press

Anthologies[edit]

• Nitaawichige: Selected Poetry and Prose by Four Anishinaabe Writers, Poetry Harbor
• Stories Migrating Home: Anishnaabe Prose, Loonfeather Press
• Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writing of North America, W.W. Norton
• Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers' Festival, University of Arizona Press
• Women Brave in the Face of Danger, Crossing Press

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Governor Doyle Appoints Denise Sweet Poet Laureate of Wisconsin
• Denise Sweet becomes Wisconsin's poet laureate
• Denise Sweet will be a wonderful Poet Laureate from The Middlewesterner
• Denise Sweet Wisconsin Poet Laureate
• Outstanding Women of Color In Education Awards, Univ. Wisconsin System
• Sweet's Faculty page
• Poet Denise Sweet Video produced by PBS Wisconsin