HALEE KIRKWOOD
Halee Kirkwood is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a Tin House Summer Workshop alumni, and an Indigenous Nations Poets (IN-NA-PO) fellow. They were awarded the 2022 James Welch Poetry Prize, published with Poetry Northwest. Kirkwood’s work can be found in Poetry Magazine, Ecotone, Gulf Coast, and others. Kirkwood is a direct descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
I know there’s another language
a language of verbs & blood
to describe what’s happening to us
I am the king of Bi-’s: Bipolar, Biracial, Bisexual, Bigender! I refuse the idea that those of us who live in Bi- spaces are halved, percentaged, or that we have to pick a side. At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge the power of occupying spaces of privilege—even when it’s conditional, compulsory, or closeting— leveraging them to fight for everyone’s liberation.
February 11, 2024
