Janice Gould


Janice Gould was a Koyangk'auwi Maidu writer and scholar. She was the author of Beneath My Heart, Earthquake Weather and co-editor with Dean Rader of Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry. Her book Doubters and Dreamers was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Binghamton University Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award.
Gould's poetic efforts were recognized by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice in 1992.

Biography

Gould was born on April 1, 1949 in San Diego, California and grew up in Berkeley. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley, earning degrees in Linguistics and English. She also earned a master's degree in Library Science from the University of Arizona. She completed a certificate in Museum Studies. Her Ph.D. was completed at the University of New Mexico. She was the Hallie Ford Chair in Creative Writing at Willamette University. In 2012 Gould completed a residency for Indigenous Writers at the School for Advanced Researchin Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was also a musician who plays guitar and accordion. Her lesbian identity has been a prominent theme of her work.

Career

Gould taught at over 13 colleges and universities in the fields of English, Creative Writing, Native American Studies and Women's Studies, and served as the Hallie Ford Chair of Creative Writing at Willamette University. At the time of her death, she was an associate professor in Women's and Ethnic Studies, and Native American Studiesat the University of Coloradoat Colorado Springs. From 2014 to 2016, Gould served as the Poet Laureate of Pike's Peak. She published 8 books. These books range from collections of her own poetry, chapbooks, art books and anthologies of essays. Her poetry has been published in over 60 journals, reviews and anthologies.
Gould was the recipient of many awards for her literary achievements, including the Ford Dissertation Fellowship, the Astraea Foundation Grant, a "Spirit of the Springs" Award from the City of Colorado Springs, and from Native Literatures: Generations.

Themes

Gould's work contains themes of “love, loneliness, longing for connection, family, history, place, and music”. She uses the term "Indigenous Assemblage" to categorize race, sex, and gender, as Gould was mixed-blood and identified as a lesbian. According to Shanna Lewis, Gould's The Force of Gratitude features the resurgence of traditional Indigenous identity to explain that her father was Two Spirited.

Selected bibliography

Select articles

  • American Indian Women's Poetry: Strategies of Rage and Hope
  • What Happened to My Anger?
  • Lesbian Landscape

    Selected books

  • Seed
  • The Force of Gratitude
  • Doubters and Dreamers
  • Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary Indigenous Poetry
  • Earthquake Weather
  • Beneath My Heart
  • Alphabet

    Grants and Scholarhips

Janice Gould is recognized for her poetry and scholarship and therefore has a long list of awards. A few of her most significant accomplishments are as follows: