Koyoonk’auwi (Concow) poet Janice Gould was the Pike’s Peak Poet Laureate for 2014-2016. Her poetry has been published in over sixty publications, and has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Astraea Foundation for Lesbian Writers, the Pikes Peak Arts Council, and from the online publication Native Literatures: Generations. Her books of poetry include Beneath My Heart, Alphabet, Earthquake Weather, and most recently, Doubters and Dreamers, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award for 2012, and for the 2012 Binghamton University Milton Kessler Poetry Book Award. She is the co-editor, with Dean Rader, of Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry. In March 2012 Janice completed a Residency for Indigenous Writers at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A musician as well as a poet, Janice plays guitar and accordion, and helped found and performed with Trio Pan Dulce in Portland, Oregon. She earned her Ph.D. in English at the University of New Mexico, and more recently a Master’s in Library Science from the University of Arizona. Janice is an Associate Professor in Women’s and Ethnic Studies (WEST), where she developed and directs the concentration in Native American Studies.
Here are some poems: