Poet Tanaya Winder Visits PEA
Spoken word artist, Native poet and educator Tanaya Winder kicked off her visit to the Academy with a public reading of her most recent publication, Words Like Love, this past Tuesday night. Through her teaching and her writing, Winder explores different expressions of love–self-love, intimate love, social love and universal love. At her performance, which was held in Rockefeller Hall of the Class of 1945 Library, she read a generous selection of poems, many of which were interspersed with songs, and continued sharing her philosophies on love in a Q&A session following the reading.
On Wednesday, Winder attended classes and met with affinity groups at lunch, where she talked about her experiences and encouraged students to continue working for their passions. In the evening, she lead a poetry workshop open to everyone called “Keeping the Fire.” Winder will continue to help Exeter celebrate national poetry month as April progresses. She is the curator of the upcoming exhibit at the Lamont Gallery entitled, “Sing Our Rivers Red,” which will display earrings from or representing missing or murdered indigenous women. Winder hopes to spread awareness through this traveling exhibition, which will come to the Exeter campus on April 23.
Winder grew up on the Southern Ute reservation in Ignacio, Colo., and is an enrolled member of the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe. Since receiving her BA in English from Stanford University and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, she has taught writing courses at Stanford, UC-Boulder and the University of New Mexico. She is the director of Upward Bound, an intensive, year-round college prep program designed to help low income, first generation high school students. She has worked with Upward Bound in different capacities for almost a decade. She is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of As/Us: A Space for Women of the World, and she coordinates the Dream Warriors Management, a collective of indigenous artists. She regularly teaches creative writing workshops and guest lectures at high schools and colleges throughout the United States.
“I think the main thing is for everyone to feel worthy, loved and that their love is worth something.”
Winder said that she began writing poems in grade school and parodying songs in high school. While a teenager, her grandfather died and she dropped out of school. When she wanted to return, her creative writing teachers were the only ones to take her back. She described this moment as the first time she used poetry to get in touch with herself. “It was just a chance for me to heal and to write things I wanted to remember about my grandpa,” she said. Though she originally studied PolySci and Psyche in college, Winder signed up for a poetry course and said, “After that I was hooked. I just kept taking writing classes.”
She switched to a major in English to pursue her passion, and since then has taught creative writing to hundreds of students. Winder said that the opportunity to teach young children, particularly children from difficult backgrounds, has inspired her writing and expanded her view of the world. “[Teaching] helps me see the world in a different way,” she said, explaining that the students’ writing based on her prompts provides her with a fresh perspective on life. “[The students] teach me more,” she said. “I’m giving them the tools, but what they’re creating is giving me insight to something I haven’t seen before.”
In her reading, Winder read a broad selection of her poems and sang during many of them. She spoke of the hardships native women face, of past students who had overcome devastating challenges, of a dear friend of hers who took his life and love. “I think I’ve always been obsessed with love,” she said. “I’ve been put on this world to love.” She went on to describe her mission of learning about how love works in its many different capacities. “It’s this crazy journey of learning about different forms of love, like how love works in families, how love works with friends, how love works with a partner or even environmental love–how we take care of the Earth and the lands and each other,” she said.
Winder explained that through her writing, she has discovered love as a common denominator in life. “They say ‘make the personal universal,’” she said. “ I saw love as this common thread connecting everything, even though it was different kinds of love.”
Intern at the Office of Multicultural Affairs Danielle Lucero, who discovered Tanaya Winder and saw the Tuesday night event to fruition, said that she was inspired by Winder’s TED Talk, “Igniting Healing.” Lucero explained that her goal for the year was to bring Native speakers to the Exeter Campus, and inviting Winder for National Poetry Month was the perfect way to achieve her goal. “Her TED Talk reminded me of the difficulty I faced in my undergraduate studies and how through all forms of love you can find healing and move forward,” Lucero said. “I felt that her messages about love were something that the Exeter community should hear because I don’t know how often “self-love” and “I love you” are said to each other on this campus.” Winder’s reading, the first of a series of events she will participate in at Exeter this month, did not disappoint. Lucero said that the performance resonated with the audience. Lucero hoped the Exeter Community can learn from Winder to better support each other. “Rather than constantly thinking of ‘getting ahead’ or being ‘the best,’ we can learn to love each other and value each other’s accomplishments,” she said. “We can share our inner fires with each other.”
Additionally, Lucero hopes that Winder’s visit to Exeter will be remembered. “I don’t know when the last indigenous woman was on this campus as a speaker,” Lucero said. “The fact that she was here and so many departments collaborated to bring her speaks volumes about the commitment the Library, the Lamont Gallery and the Office of Multicultural Affairs has in celebrating underrepresented voices.”
Lamont Gallery Intern Olivia Knauss found Winder’s performance both beautiful and refreshing. “She offered her whole self to the audience, which immediately put me at ease,” Knauss said. “Love is such a hard thing to write about and Ms. Winder finds the words to do it justice. I was incredibly honored to hear her poems read and see her performance as she intended. I left the reading wanting to share Words Like Love with those I hold dear.”
Winder said that she has loved her time on campus thus far and that she hopes the Exeter community will extract something from her work. “I think the main thing is for everyone to feel worthy, loved and that their love is worth something,” she said.