Free Outdoor Poetry Reading with Natalie Diaz & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Outdoor Poetry Reading with Natalie Diaz & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Wednesday, April 1, 2026, 7:00 PM

Free Event

at Amerind Museum

in partnership with the University of Arizona Poetry Center and In-Na-Po

Please join us for a Free outdoor poetry reading with Natalie Diaz and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on Wednesday, April 1st at 7:00 pm at Amerind.
This event is in partnership with the University of Arizona Poetry Center and as part of In-Na-Po 2026 Retreat, at Amerind.

Natalie Diaz was born on the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe (Akimel O’odham). Diaz is the author of Postcolonial Love Poem, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, finalist for the National Book Award, Forward Prize in Poetry, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and winner of a Publishing Triangle Award. Her first book, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was winner of an American Book Award.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg  musician, writer and academic, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Leanne is the author of eight books, including A Short History of the Blockade and the novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies which was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize.

Founded in 2020, In-Na-Po is a national Indigenous poetry community committed to mentoring emerging writers, nurturing the growth of Indigenous poetic practices, and raising the visibility of all Native Writers past, present, and future. They will host their fifth annual week-long retreat for emerging Native poets at the Amerind Museum in Dragoon, AZ, and at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Amerind joins In Na Po and the University of Arizona Poetry Center with gratitude for our generous retreat and event sponsors Chuck Hudson (MHA Nation) and Sarah Chisholm, Bahti Indian Arts, the University of Arizona Office of Native American Advancement and Tribal Engagement, and generosity from the Poetry Center’s Walt Whitman Circle and Amerind’s Giving Circles.

This is a Free event and will be held outdoors under the full moon. Please dress appropriately for an early April Arizona evening, and please bring your camping chair if you have one.

We hope to see you April 1st for an evening poetry under the stars!

Can’t make it out to Amerind on Wednesday? Please join us at The Poetry Center in Tucson on Thursday, April 2nd, 7:00 pm and, Friday, April 3rd at 7:00 pm for the final readings from In-Na-Po. 

The Poetry Center is located at: 1508 E. Helen St. (at Vine Ave.) in Tucson

This is a Free Event-All welcome

Sacred Spaces of Indigenous Poetry: In-Na-Po 2026 First Night Reading, featuring Retreat Fellows and Poets Elise Paschen, Rob Arnold, and Ofelia Zepeda

Thursday, April 2, 2026 – 7:00 pm

Sacred Spaces of Indigenous Poetry: In-Na-Po 2026 Retreat Second Night Reading, featuring Retreat Fellows and Poets Kimberly Blaeser, Bojan Louis and Laura Tohe

Friday, April 3, 2026 – 7:00pm