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Chris Hoshnic

Diné, Playwright, & Filmmaker
Chris Hoshnic is a Diné poet, playwright, and filmmaker from Sweetwater, Arizona. Born to kinlichii'nii and born for tachinii, his work explores migratory poetics, a method that examines how movement, both literal and metaphorical, reshapes Diné language, identity, and belonging. By foregrounding translation and cultural exchange, his writing reimagines language as a space for dialogue, memory, and collective transformation. Recipient of the Poetry Northwest 2025 James Welch Prize, Hoshnic’s work appears in POETRY, Kenyon Review, and beyond. He is Editor-in-Chief of Chapter House Journal, directs Diné Kids Film Club, and received his MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Contact: chrishoshnic@gmail.com

Chris Hoshnic's Presentations

Artist Talk

Indigenous Culture

Poetry

Southwest Indigenous Poetry: Writing with Sound Through the Pastoral

How do poems shape the way we see, describe, and understand a landscape? This poetry workshop explores the Pastoral, a literary tradition that often portrays land as beautiful, peaceful, and untouched, obscuring the histories, labor, and relationships that have shaped it. Grounded in the landscapes of Arizona and the Southwest, the workshop asks what it means to occupy land versus work in relation to it, and how language, sound, and poetic form shape these different relationships.

Designed for writers of all experience levels, including those new to poetry, the workshop invites participants to reconsider the Pastoral through Indigenous presence and the ongoing relationships between people and land. Through sound and form, we will explore how poetry can make room for survivalhood, displacement, memory, commerce, and belonging, imagining landscapes not as empty or idealized spaces, but as living places shaped by histories, voices, and continuing relationships.