ABOUT
The poetry of Roberta Gould has been described as intense and highly disciplined, concise and communicative with subject matter that varies greatly. Her work should be included in any comprehensive collection of present day poets.
– Choice, American Library Association
Embellishments are kept to a minimum in Gould’s poetry. “Stories do not need me” she says in a recent interview and depicts from many angles, personal and philosophical, with an aliveness and verve, expressed in quotidian language which is precise and musical. This gives her work the arresting archetypical power that has been noted. For many years she has also given us true political poetry that transcends time and the details of the day with great power. These poems have been recurrent since her first book, Dream Yourself Flying.
Gould taught Romance languages for twenty years at Brooklyn College and briefly at the University of California in Berkeley. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry Now, Catholic Worker, California Quarterly, Milkweed Chronicle, Mid American Review, Jewish Currents, Green Mountain Review, Confrontation, Helicon Nine, Naugatuck River Review, Socialism and Democracy, The Art and Craft of Poetry, in many other literary publications, and in anthologies including Mixed Voices, A Slant of Light, Up the River. Titles of her 10 books, including Writing Air, Written Water, Pacing the Wind, Only Rock, Louder Than Seeds, reflect her environment and the mind that filters it. Several of her books, including What History Trammels, 2011, are available as e-books. A contributing editor of Home Planet News, she has read her work on public and university radio, Radio Universidad Guadalajara, WKCR, Columbia University, WNYC, Pacifica Radio, on various television stations, at the Pen American Center and the Woodstock Poetry Festival. She has exhibited her surreal photography, in New York City and has translated into English poetry by Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz, Salvador Espriu, Pedro Garfias, Jorge Luis Borges and other Spanish language poets.