Kinsale Drake ( , born March 4, 2000) is a Native American poet, playwright, performer, and writer. Drake is Diné and a citizen of the Navajo Nation. In September 2023, Drake was one of five winners of the 2023 National Poetry Series for their debut poetry collection The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket.
Drake was born in Los Angeles, California. They grew up between Los Angeles and (Navajo Mountain).
Drake earned a BA from Yale University in English and in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. Their work has explored âÂÂthe intersections of cultural (re)vitalization movements, Indigenous poetics, and Indigenous feminisms.âÂÂ
Drake has served as a guest faculty member at the Emerging Diné Writers Institute, held at Navajo Technical University.
As of September 2024, they were working toward an MFA at Vanderbilt University.
Drake's poetry often engages with their Navajo upbringing, family, and culture. They have described poetry as "a way to explore her Navajo culture and her connection to her Indigenous roots," and have said their grandmother has had a major impact on their work as a poet.
Drake has received several awards for their writing. In 2017, they were selected as a National Student Poet representing the West as part of the National Student Poetry Program run by the Library of Congress. While attending Yale, they received the Yale Young Native Storytellers Award for Spoken Word and Storytelling, the Academy of American Poets College Prize, and the J. Edgar Meeker Award.
Their work has appeared in venues including Poetry, Best New Poets, Poets.org, Poetry Northwest, The Slowdown, Black Warrior Review, The Adroit Journal, and Poetry Online.
In 2019, Time named Drake one of "34 People Changing How We See Our World", and in 2021 Yahoo! named them an In the Know Changemaker. They have been featured in Nylon, Time, and Indian Country Today.
Drake is also a playwright and received Yale's Young Native Playwrights Award for their play As It Has Always Been.
In November 2025, an anthology that Drake co-edited with Stacie Shannon Denetsosie and Darcie Little Badger was published. Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms includes work from 22 Indigenous writers.
Drake narrated the audiobook versions of Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe (2020) and A Snake Falls to Earth (2021). They have also worked as a narrator for two Rick Riordan Presents releases: Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (2020) and The Cursed Carnival & other Calamities (2021).
In June 2023, Drake performed poetry at Carnegie Hall in New York.
Drake founded NDN Girls Book Club, a literary organization that "aims to amplify Indigenous authors, support tribal libraries and bookstores, and encourage reading and writing among Native youth." In 2024, the organization distributed 10,000 books in Hopi Nation and the Navajo Nation, and undertook a similar distribution effort in Southeast Alaska in 2025 with Tlingit and Haida communities.
Drake is a member of the Drake family of Navajo Mountain. They often visited their grandmother's farm on the UtahâÂÂArizona border. Their family comes from a traditional Navajo cultural background. Their maternal grandfather was Harold Drake Sr., a boarding school survivor who was taken from his family by police during a cultural dance and brought to Tuba City Boarding School. Drake is related to the late Buck Navajo Sr., described as the last hataaà Âii () of Navajo Mountain.
Drake has named Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko as influential figures at the start of their career.