Sawnie Morris is an award-winning poet & recently served as the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Taos, NM (2018-2019)
Sawnie’s poetry collection, Her, Infinite was the winner of the 2015 New Issues Press Poetry Award (judge: Major Jackson) and was released in March of 2016. Additional awards in 2016 include: the Ruth Stone Poetry Award (judge: Lee Upton); inclusion in BAX2016: Best American Experimental Writing, editors Charles Bernstein and Tracy Morris, (Wesleyan University Press), digital edition; and, and a feature in Poets & Writers Magazine’s “5 Over 50,” honoring 5 debut authors in 2016, (Nov/Dec issue). Her long poem, “Clothespins On the Line” is forthcoming in the April 2017 edition of Poetry. Sawnie’s poems have also been honored with the Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin Memorial Award and a New Mexico Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Lana Turner (Cal Bedient and David Lau, editors); Pool: A Journal of Poetry (Judith Taylor, Editor); Denver Quarterly (Bin Ramke, editor); as well as The Journal (Kathy Fagan Grandinetti, Editor); Women’s Review of Books (Robin Becker, editor); Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (Veronica Golos, editor); Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art (Cathy Strisik and Veronica Golos, editors); drunkenboat.com (Rebecca Seiferle, editor); and are forthcoming in Puerto de Sol (Richard Greenfield, contributing editor) and Plume. She has taught poetry workshops and literature courses at the University of New Mexico’s Bachelor and Graduate Studies program, at Southern Methodist University, and through the D.H. Lawrence Ranch online Rananim Project.
Sawnie teaches poetry writing workshops in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, at conferences across the country, online, and at other locations on request.
She also offers private manuscript consultations, as well as coaching and mentorships to poets who wish to deepen their possibilities through an individualized plan of study.
Sawnie is an award-winning prose writer.
She has been winner of a Texas Pen Literary Award and the National ACLU Creative Non-Fiction Award. Her writing about poetry and poets has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and the Boston Review, and the online Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art.
Sawnie has taught literature courses at the University of New Mexico and currently offers private manuscript consultations, as well as coaching and mentorship programs for anyone who wishes to extend and explore their expressive abilities through writing.
Sawnie Morris is a dreamer and a dreamworker.
Befriending her own dreams and listening to and appreciating the dreams of others has played an prominent role in Sawnie’s creative life for the past thirty years. She brings a poet’s imagination and love of language to dream work and approaches dream work from an integral perspective, creatively mixing non-interpretive and interpretive reflections. She studied an eclectic, socially and environmentally conscious, Jungian-based array of approaches to befriending and honoring dreams for many years with Doctors Pat and Larry Sargent, which forms the basis of her practice. She has also studied with internationally known dream worker, Jeremy Taylor and earned Dream Work Facilitation Certification through Marin Institute of Projective Dreamwork. She has facilitated and co-facilitated dream groups in Taos and the Bay Area, as well as teaching a “Dreams & Poetry Workshop” privately and through the University of New Mexico.
Sawnie offers a Dreams & Creativity group on a routine basis in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, and on request at other locations. She also offers dream groups, private dream consultations, and dream-coaching to individuals.
Sawnie Morris is an environmental activist.
She was the first Executive Director of Amigos Bravos: Because Water Matters, a highly accomplished non-profit advocacy and social justice organization for the waters of New Mexico and the people and wildlife that depend on those waters. She has served on the Board of Directors, as the Assistant to the Director, and more recently as the Curator of Art & Activism.
Sawnie recently completed service on the board of directors for the Oo-Oo-Nah Art & Culture Center, at Taos Pueblo.
SawnieMorris.com 