CHRISTOPHER BURAWA

Christopher Burawa is the author of The Small Mystery of Lapses (Cleveland State University Press, 2005), the chapbook, Where I Came Here From (Finishing Line Press, 2023), and Of The Same Mind: Poems by Jóhann Hjálmarsson (Toad Press, 2005). He is a poet, translator, and teacher. Burawa has a B.A. in English Language and Literature, M.A. in English Language and Literature with an emphasis on Old English prosody, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry from Arizona State University.

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Among Burawa's honors are the Cleveland State University Press First Book Prize, the Toad Press International International Chapbook Series Prize, a MacDowell Colony residency, the 2006 Witter Bynner Translation Fellowship at the Santa Fe Art Institute, a 2007 NEA Fellowship in Translation, a 2008 American-Scandinavian Foundation Creative Writing Research Fellowship, a 2014 Icelandic Writers Union Translation Fellowship, and a 2015 Bread Loaf Translators' Conference Fellowship, and most recently a 2019 Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council Advancing Artists grant.

 

Burawa has worked as an editor, technical writer, internet project manager, grant writer, community college instructor, adjunct faculty for a graduate creative writing program, literary arts and communications director for a state arts agency, director of a university research center, and executive director of an artist residency program. In 2019, he received an Aroha Philanthropies teaching artist fellowship in Creative Aging.

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Burawa began practicing Rinzai Zen under Hakuun Sokai Geoffrey Barratt at Haku-un-ji Zen Center in 1994 and became a disciple of Japanese Zen Master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki the same year. He was ordained a Zen Buddhist monk in 2005 and given the name, Genyo (Ineffable Source).

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Burawa lives in Red Wing, Minnesota.