Roberta Hill, (b. 1947) an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, is a poet, fiction writer and scholar. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin. Her MFA is from the University of Montana, and her Ph.D. was obtained from the University of Minnesota.
Roberta has been an instructor for the Poets-in-the-Schools Program in several places, including Minnesota, Arizona, and Oklahoma. She is currently an Associate Professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She serves on the Advisory Board for wicazo sa review. Roberta is currently working on a biography of Dr. L. Rosa Minoka-Hill, her grandmother, the second American Indian woman doctor, will be published by the University of Nebraska Press. She has 3 children.
Roberta's fiction, poetry and essays have most recently appeared in The American Indian Culture and Research Journal, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Luna and Prairie Schooner. She is currently at work on her first novel, A Century of Sad Madness, a story about trauma and love in the context of ongoing colonzation. She previously published as Roberta Hill Whiteman.
Roberta has a two poems included in the St. Paul Sculptural Garden, Language of the Land Project, where her "room" in the garden contains sight-lines developed with reference to the Native American burial grounds that are visible from the site.
The Wisconsin Library Association cited her collection of poetry, Star Quilt (Holy Cow! Press 1984), with an Outstanding Achievement Recognition.
"Cicadas, New and Selected Poems by Roberta Hill is a definitive
collection from one of America's best poets of her generation.
These fine poems by Roberta Hill make a visionary trail through
years of history and personal myth. Hill's poetry has always
challenged me to leap deeper into their finely spun mythical-real
world. They stun me. The classic "Star Quilt" opens the book and
reminds us that the overall form of the collection is like a star
quilt. Each poem, makes a shape in the pattern, each pulse of line,
image and light give impetus to the form. Grief and joy define the
star within us, of us. The poem "Philadelphia Flowers" is the heart
of the collection. It is a call to compassion and deserves to be an
American classic. And finally the new poems, like cicadas, have
climbed up earth through years of yearning, to shed their husks and
sing. And what a journey! This is one of the most important
collections of contemporary indigenous American poetry."--Joy
Harjo, author of Crazy Brave "Through cosmic imagery of the
ordinary, Cicadas: New & Selected Poems by Roberta Hill are the
journey that sweeps us across the Nation's geography from birth to
the edge of silence and back. Roberta's poems share with us a quiet
intimacy that transforms the predictable into a raw, yet delicate
feast of emotions, for all of us to sample."--John Francis, author
of The Ragged Edge of Silence: Finding Peace in a Noisy World
"Roberta Hill continues to lead us through her uniquely Oneida
borne and traveler-graced poetic. Her lines lead us, too, carry our
burdens, release us, remind us to lift ourselves, sing elegies for
those we lose, bring us altitudes, summits, winged entry, then
cradles our looming falls. Cicadas, a monumental selected works
re-establishes Star Quilt memories, dreams back Philadelphia
Flowers, fastens time with an all new Cicadas planting, serves up a
reminder of this early leader and forms her sure presence in the
fertile field. Placing promise and gifting us to return to her,
here, Hill, instills, 'We pulse with paradox, //with sweet darkness
and fire that can move//through distances, gauged by more than eyes
alone.//There is no edge, but always room to love.' Thoroughly
guiding us back home to her ardent work. Phenomenally,
so."--Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, author of Blood Run & Off-Season
City Pipe "Time found its voice in the poetry of Roberta Hill. A
powerful voice with the wings of Love and Death. A voice with the
colors of ancient everyday landscapes and the colors of luminous
dreams. Cicadas, New and Selected Poetry by Roberta Hill is a must
have, a must read and a must share with everyone."--Mois�s
Villavicencio Barras, author of Light of All Times "'I'm not first/
to go claim as kin/ the cicada.' In these poems spanning thirty
years Roberta Hill chronicles the things that matter: family, the
wisdom of animals, and the travails of 'this dancing earth.' In
Cicadas, we watch the poet's journey from the landscapes of her
youth to the hard-earned wisdom of the present. Ultimately Hill's
poems are rife with the music that comes rising out of the soil. In
short, Cicadas sings."--Amy Quan Barry, author of Water Puppets
"With elegant rich imagery, these poems root deep in the memory of
those who've gone before. Roberta Hill re-gifts us with the 'grace
we lost' and reconnects us to our continuous presence on this
continent, where we look out from the windows of these poems, in
awe of the beauty unraveling before us."--Sherwin Bitsui, author of
Flood Song
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