Gloria Bird

Bird started writing at a young age on the reservation as she was in isolation, and writing her first few poems was a beginning for her. Bird wrote and got her first poetry book published, Full Moon on the Reservation where she landed her first award as a writer in 1993, and in 1997 published her second book The River of History. Bird’s writing has appeared in many anthologies like Speaking for Generations, Reinventing the Enemy's Language and more (see Anthologies below).

Gloria Bird (born 1951) is a Native American poet, essayist, teacher and a member of the Spokane Tribe in Washington State. Gloria spreads her work not only by writing for her but all Native American people. In her work, Bird’s main priority is to question and diminish harmful stereotypes placed on Native American people. Her focus in on educating about her community in accurate scripts without exploiting the culture.

Bird was born in 1951 in Yakima Valley, Washington. Growing up, Bird was always in between two reservations, Spokane and Colville, attending American Indian boarding schools. Bird grew up with sisters, mothers, grandparents, and remembers from this time that her sister taught her "how to peel and eat sunflower stalks with a little bit of salt." While in high school, Bird attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. After high school, Bird attended Portland Community College, and went on to Lewis and Clark College in 1990 receiving her bachelors in English and receiving her masters in literature at the University of Arizona in 1992.