An Evening with Laura Tohe

Join The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for the 2026 Jonathan and Maxine Marshall Distinguished Lecture featuring Laura Tohe.

About the speaker
Laura Tohe is Sleepy Rock People clan and born for the Bitter Water People clan. She is an award-winning poet and writer and the current Arizona State Poet Laureate. Her books include No Parole Today, Tséyi, Deep in the Rock and Meeting the Spirit of Water, and she co-edited Sister Nations, an anthology of Native American women’s writing. Her oral history book, Code Talker Stories, is a bilingual collection of interviews with remaining Navajo Code Talkers and their descendants.
Tohe has written poetry, essays and media articles that have been widely published nationally and internationally. Her commissioned libretti include Enemy Slayer, A Navajo Oratorio, which premiered at Phoenix Symphony Hall, and Nahasdzáán (Mother Earth) in the Glittering World/Nahasdzáán Ou Le Monde, which premiered in France. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2025 Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship and the Dan Shilling Public Scholar Award from Arizona Humanities.
Tohe has also shared her expertise through the Arizona Humanities Arizona Speaks program, presenting on Indigenous literature, culture and history, including the Navajo Code Talkers. She is Professor Emerita with Distinction from Arizona State University and serves on the Board of Directors for Indigenous Nations Poets
(In-Na-Po).
Tohe holds master’s and doctoral degrees in creative writing, American literature and Native American literature.

About the lecture series
The Jonathan and Maxine Marshall Distinguished Lecture Series brings to ASU nationally known scholars concerned with promoting culture through the humanities and a better understanding of the problems of democracy. This annual free public lecture is funded with an endowed gift from Jonathan and Maxine Marshall.