Cedar Sigo is an established poet, with eight books and pamphlets of poetry. His book Language Arts (Wave, 2014), received positive praise from Publishers Weekly, who called it arresting.
Cedar grew up on the Suquamish reservation and is actively involved in the community of native poets, critics, and teachers. He is a mentor at the Institute for American Indian Arts and has collaborated with other native poets on a variety of publishing and series. Sigo was a coeditor of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (also edited by poet laureate Joy Harjo), which is on Oprah’s booklist and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. We expect that this book will particularly interest to Native Nations and LGBTQ+ audiences. However, these poems also will be of interest to a general poetry audience, as Cedar is connected to the experimental poetry and arts community nationally after many years in the San Francisco poetry community. Cedar is publishing his lecture book Guard the Mysteries in June, so we expect cross-promotion of both titles as the timing will increase visibility. In recent years, Cedar has been an instructor at the Naropa Summer Writing Program at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where in 1995 he was awarded a scholarship to study writing. He studied with Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Lisa Jarnot, Alice Notley, and Joanne Kyger, among other poets.