Wendy Rose has made important contributions to American poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. Her poems are strong and often angry or satiric, and they frequently are indictments of historical injustice. The circumstances of her life have compelled her to create an independent identity, and the record of that journey is embedded in her poems. She takes her place with other postmodern artists and thinkers who have embraced marginalization as a condition of insight, flexibility, and compassion.

Rose was born Bronwen Elizabeth Edwards on 7 May 1948 in Oakland, California, and grew up in the San Francisco area. Her father was Hopi, and her mother can trace descent from Miwok as well as European ancestors. Rose's own efforts have forged the identity she claims, however, and many of her poems speak powerfully for her sense of that struggle. Her childhood during the 1950s and 1960s was tumultuous...