Donna Beaver (Kaakwdagaan) is Kaagwaantaan (Wolf Clan) of the Eagle/ Wolf Moiety of her mother, grandmother, and Great Grandmother Annie Dalton James, who was the elder sister of George Dalton from the Kaagwagaani Hit (Burnt Timbers House) of the Glacier Bay Area in the Tongass National Forest, the ancestral territory of her family and the Hoonah Tlingit.
ABOUT
Donna Beaver is an Alaska Native (Tlingit / Tsimshian) poet and multidisciplinary artist, originally from Juneau, Alaska, now living in North Carolina. In addition to writing, she is a fine art photographer, filmmaker, graphic/web designer, and multimedia artist. Donna also works in traditional materials as a mixed-media collage artist, illustrator, sculptor, and jewelry designer.
As a former education outreach coordinator specializing in informal and Native science education, she continues to do Indigenous Knowledge talks and storytelling worksh.
Get to know Donna through the poetry podcast, Haiku Chronicles, that she produces and co-hosts with her husband and poet, Alan Pizzarelli. Haiku Chronicles is a free, non-profit educational podcast devoted to the art of haiku and related poetic forms.
Donna Beaver poetry reading at Issyra Gallery, Hoboken, NJ (2019)
MEDIA
Artist profile in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian magazine's Winter 2023 issue.
News Article in the Juneau Empire on, Remembering the sparks of the ‘Alaska Native Literary Renaissance’ (Juneau Empire, 2018) on a poetry event I organized to be a part of CELEBRATION, Sealaska Heritage’s biennial festival of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures that has been held in Juneau, Alaska, every even year since 1982.
Article in the Daily Sitka Sentinel of me (left) and Clarissa Rizal (right) highlighting our presentation on “Regalia Research.” Part of the Ceremonial Regalia panel with panelists, Megan Smetzer, Evelyn Vanderhoop, Emily Moore at the Sharing Our Knowledge Clan Conference in Sitka, AK (2007).
I also did a presentation “A Geologist’s Vision for a Bureau of Ethnology” on John Wesley-Powell. I was panel lead for Ethnohistory - Part 2. Panelists included: Ben Paul, Judith Berman, Diane Purvis, and Gil Truitt.