D.J. Hamilton won the Proverse Prize 2018 with his poetry collection, "The Hummingbird Sometimes Flies Backwards".
Hamilton grew up in a farming village of 400 people near Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Public school teachers first encouraged his passions for writing poems and creating theatre. Hamilton’s poems appear in a handful of publications including: Ofi Press; Repentino; Dalmoma, Firecrackers, Bumbershoot Anthology, Compages, and others. He has won local awards for his poetry, and plays, and a New York Fringe Festival award for his theatre directing. Previously he lived in Port Townsend, Washington; home to many artists, writers, small presses, and the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. In Port Townsend he first became interested in classical Chinese poetry, Buddhism, and Taoism. Here he also first heard some of the writers and translators who would influence him: Denise Levertov, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Galway Kinnell, Arthur Sze, Paul Hansen and Red Pine. The writers and publishers of Empty Bowl and Copper Canyon Press, in particular became friends and mentors. Returning to Seattle he founded Theatre Babylon, a small alternative theatre company focused on new plays. He has acted and/or directed plays in Canada, Europe, Mexico, New York and other US cities. In 2004, he moved to Mexico began his teaching in International Schools in Mexico. He now lives in Hong Kong with his wife, the teacher and psychologist, Montserrat Salazar.
Hamilton spoke about his life and relationship with creativity and poetry in particular at the launch of The Hummingbird Sometimes Flies Backwards at the Proverse Autumn Reception, 2019: https://youtu.be/zqHizuLE8E4
