Karenne Wood was an enrolled member of the Monocan Indian Nation, a poet, and linguistic anthropologist. She earned her MFA at George Mason University and earned her PhD from the University of Virginia, where she taught and advocated for Indigenous communities. In her poems, she often explores themes of identity, cultural heritage, and language. She studied the Moacan language, which is no longer spoken, and how the loss of language effected intergenerational communication and cultural values when the words they used no longer existed.
Wood was the author of the poetry collections Markings on Earth (2001), which won a Diane Decorah Award for Poetry from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, and Weaving the Boundary (2016). Her work has been included in the anthologies Sister Nations: Native American Women Writers in Community (2002), The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal (2010), Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas(2011), The Willow’s Whisper : A Transatlantic Compilation of Poetry from Ireland and Native America (2011), New Poets of Native Nations (2018), and Ghost Fishing (2018)
Wood served on the Monacan Tribal Council and directed the Virginia Indian Programs at the Virginia Center for the Humanities since 2007. In 2009, Virginia Humanities received the Federation of State Humanities Councils’ highest honor—the Schwartz Prize—for her work on their Virginia Indian Programs, which included numerous statewide speaking engagements and a printed guide to the state-recognized tribes. She was also instrumental in updating Virginia’s Standards of Learning to frame a more enlightened understanding of indigenous peoples in our region’s past as well as an awareness that Virginia Indian cultures and communities are a vital part of our present and future. She also served as the repatriation director for the Association on American Indian Affairs to return sacred objects to indigenous nations and as a researcher for the National Museum of the American Indian. Wood curated Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present, exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. She served as chair of the Virginia Council on Indians and as a member of the National Congress of American Indians’ Repatriation Commission. In 2015, she was recognized by the Library of Virginia as part of their Virginia Women in History.
Wood lived in Arlington, Virginia, until her death in 2019 after a battle with cancer at the age of 59.
This week, Take a Hike with Karenne Wood.
