NEWS
NORMAN, OKLA. – University of Oklahoma Assistant Professor Jake Skeets has been named the Navajo Nation Poet Laureate, an honor recognizing his deep contributions to Indigenous literature and community-engaged poetry. He will serve in this role from 2025 through 2027.
Skeets is the third Navajo Nation Poet Laureate to be named. He teaches creative writing at OU and considers himself first and foremost a poet. His first book of poetry published in 2019, Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, is a coming-of-age tale of a young Navajo person growing up in a small New Mexico town. It received critical acclaim, winning multiple awards, including the 2018 National Poetry Series and American Book Award. Skeets has been called a “new, essential voice in poetry” by peers. His second poetry book, Horses, is scheduled for publication in 2026.
“These awards felt like an affirmation of the work I’m doing and the challenges I’ve been through,” Skeets said. “I didn’t come from a family of academics or writers, so I had to learn quickly how to deal with this success.”
Being named the Navajo Nation Poet Laureate is an accomplishment that he hopes will not only help him build the career he desires but also allow him to give back to his Native community.
“The laureateship itself doesn’t ask anything of the Laureate. But the past two Laureates, Luci Tapahonso and Laura Tohe, have done projects that benefit the community,” he said. “Following their example, I want to help amplify creative writing and poetry. Everybody is a natural storyteller, so I want to cultivate that energy.”
Skeets began his teaching career at Diné College on the Navajo Nation in Tsaile, AZ. It was the first tribally controlled and accredited college in the United States. He joined the University of Oklahoma faculty in 2022. He has received a junior faculty fellowship to work on prose this summer and will participate in a manuscript development workshop for his forthcoming novel, Dawnhouse, in the fall. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine and The New York Times Magazine, among others. Learn more about Skeets’ work.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
Three University of Oklahoma graduate students have been named winners of the 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition, which challenges participants to explain their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience.
Sarah Sharif, a researcher with the University of Oklahoma, has been awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to create innovative light detectors that pick up mid-wave and long-wave infrared signals at higher temperatures than previously considered achievable.
A team from OU and WVU recently earned a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how concept cigarillos influence the potential for addiction. The results will be used to inform the FDA’s impending flavor ban on cigar products and could have wider-reaching implications for other tobacco products that come in flavors, such as e-cigarettes and tobacco-free nicotine pouches.
