Sonja
Hristina
Bjelić
Poet, birth worker and PhD student based between NYC and Belgrade, Serbia
BIO
Sonja (she/they) is a queer, Serbian-American poet, educator and birth worker based between New York City, Massachusetts, and Belgrade, Serbia. They received their Masters in Fine Arts from New York University in 2019 and are pursing a diploma in quantum midwifery through The Matrona.
Her poetry has been published in various journals, and in 2018 they were 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, they have 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 hypnobirthing educator, guiding birthers in instinctive birth, and volunteers as a birthkeeper with the Birthworker’s Collective of Western Massachusetts. In collaboration with poets Jiaoyang Li and Cole Bjelic, they coedit 叵CLIP, an online journal oriented toward experimental, hybrid and process-based writing and art.
Sonja sees birth work as an extension of her poetry practice and interests in language, breath, memory, the subconscious and the divine. She seeks to provide sensitive and holistic birther-led care to those whom she supports. Growing up with a mother who had three natural births, two of which were home births, Sonja was raised to see birth as a natural and transformative experience.
Her poetry has been published in various journals, and in 2018 they were 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, they have 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 hypnobirthing educator, guiding birthers in instinctive birth, and volunteers as a birthkeeper with the Birthworker’s Collective of Western Massachusetts. In collaboration with poets Jiaoyang Li and Cole Bjelic, they coedit 叵CLIP, an online journal oriented toward experimental, hybrid and process-based writing and art.
Sonja sees birth work as an extension of her poetry practice and interests in language, breath, memory, the subconscious and the divine. She seeks to provide sensitive and holistic birther-led care to those whom she supports. Growing up with a mother who had three natural births, two of which were home births, Sonja was raised to see birth as a natural and transformative experience.