Roberta Spear

Roberta Spear grew up in California’s Central Valley and earned a BA and an MA at California State University, Fresno. She published three books of poetry: The Pilgrim Among Us (1991), Taking to Water (1984), and Silks (1980), selected by Philip Levine for the National Poetry Series. Levine edited a posthumous collection of Spear’s work, A Sweetness Rising: New and Selected Poems (2007). He wrote of her work, “You could say at times she saw stories where there were none or where she simply invented them, exotic stories of gypsies and pranksters, travelers and seekers. [Her] vision will continue moving and touching readers for as long as people care about American poetry.”

Spear’s honors include the James D. Phelan Award; the PEN, Los Angeles Center Poetry Award; and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Spear died in Fresno in 2003.