ABOUT
Mihku Paul is a Malecite writer and visual artist born and raised traditionally on the Penobscot River in Maine. She holds a B.A. in communication and human development and received her MFA in 2010 from Stonecoast. Mihku has taught poetry and fiction writing to diverse groups including Waponaki Writers Project, Rise Up! and at the Maine Women Writers Collection.
In 2009, the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor hosted her one-woman multi-media exhibit titled “Look Twice: the Waponaki in Image & Verse.” Text from her poems “Mother Tongue” and “History 101” have been incorporated into an original performance piece by Sacabuche!, a Canadian 17th century early music ensemble that performs internationally.
She has presented at the University of New Brunswick, UMaine Orono, UNH, NAISA, UNE, Maine Waponaki REACH/Upstander Project, Midcoast Indigenous Awareness Group, Friends of Presumpscot, and as two-time panel chairperson at AWP and as a special guesst of Dr. Lisa Brooks. Mihku also participated in the RISCA inaugural exhibit of Indigenous art at the Atrium Gallery in Rhode Island. Her painting “All Nations Seek Peace,” was featured on the cover of MELUS. She strives to use her art in support of racial and environmental justice causes.
Her work has been published in Canada and the U.S., in Poesis, Cabildo Quarterly, Dawnland Voices and Port City Poems among others. Her first book, 20th Century PowWow Playland, was published in 2012 by Bowman Books, an imprint of the Greenfield Review Press. Mihku has presented Waponaki cultural enrichment curriculum in Portland public schools for more than two decades and her historical poem, “Song for Machigonne,” is currently taught at various universities in Maine.
In addition to her activism, Mihku does storytelling, practices permaculture and creates graphic art. These days she is writing a play about the impacts of the Indian residential school system and completing a manuscript on the waters for a Victoria, BC press. Mihku lives and works in Portland.
