Sonja
Hristina
Bjelić
Poet, birth worker and PhD student based between NYC and Belgrade, Serbia
Sonja Hristina Bjelić (she/they) is
a queer, Serbian-American poet, educator and birthworker based between New York City, Massachusetts, and Belgrade, Serbia. She received her Masters in Fine Arts from New York University in 2019 and is pursuing a diploma in Quantum Midwifery through The Matrona.
Her poetry has been published in various journals, and in 2018 she was awarded a Writer’s Fellowship by the Edward F. Albee Foundation. As a second generation Serbian-American, her work explores themes of identity, diaspora, dual consciousness, multigenerational bodily memory, family constellations, power, and language and the imaginary as mechanisms for destabilizing inherited (institutional and capitalistic) modes of thinking.
As an educator, she has taught writing at New York University, The City University of New York, and Legal Outreach, a nonprofit that “seeks to level the educational playing field for minority, low-income, and first generation students.” She is also a birthkeeper and educator at Oneiria Birth. In collaboration with poets Jiaoyang Li and Cole Bjelic, Sonja coedits 叵CLIP, an online journal oriented toward experimental, hybrid and process-based writing and art.
Her poetry has been published in various journals, and in 2018 she was awarded a Writer’s Fellowship by the Edward F. Albee Foundation. As a second generation Serbian-American, her work explores themes of identity, diaspora, dual consciousness, multigenerational bodily memory, family constellations, power, and language and the imaginary as mechanisms for destabilizing inherited (institutional and capitalistic) modes of thinking.
As an educator, she has taught writing at New York University, The City University of New York, and Legal Outreach, a nonprofit that “seeks to level the educational playing field for minority, low-income, and first generation students.” She is also a birthkeeper and educator at Oneiria Birth. In collaboration with poets Jiaoyang Li and Cole Bjelic, Sonja coedits 叵CLIP, an online journal oriented toward experimental, hybrid and process-based writing and art.