Chrystos

Biography
Chrystos Smith is a writer, poet and activist who prefers the pronoun "they" and identifies as a lesbian. They were born in San Francisco, California to a father of Menominee ancestry and a Lithuanian heritage mother. Chrystos did not experience growing up on a reservation and they instead grew up around Latino, Asian, Black and White people. They distinguish themselves as an Urban Indian and have been residing on Bainbridge Island, Washington for the last 37 years.

Chrystos is a self taught writer whose work as an activist is well known. Their work is mainly focused around politics, Native rights and themes of feminism. Their personal life experiences are interwoven into their poetry which reflects on their difficult upbringing with their severely depressed mother and a father who was so ashamed of his Native American heritage that he refused to speak his language.

Chrystos identifies with survivors of violence. A large part of their efforts are towards fighting for Indigenous people, equality for lesbians and prisoners. Chrystos has a passion to end oppression, violence hunger and theft of land across the world. Their work ranges from a variety of areas from abortion to wife battering to Palestinian rights.

Works by the Author

 * Fire Power


 * In Her I AM
 * Not Vanishing
 * Fugitive Colors
 * Dream On

Chrystos' works has been featured in the book This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), Living the Spirit:  A Gay American Indian Anthology (1988) and co-edited the Best Lesbian Erotica anthology (1999).

Quotes by Chrystos
"Of course it is extremely difficult to like oneself in a culture which thinks you are a disease."

"Depression is a very sensible reaction to just about everything we live in now."

"The have our bundles split open in museums, our dresses and shirts at auctions, our languages on tape, our stories in locked rare book libraries, our dances on film. The only part of us that they can't steal, is what we know."

Awards
Chrystos won the Audre Lorde International Poetry Competition in 1994.

They received the Sappho Award of Distinction from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice in 1995.