Wendy Rose (Miwok/Hopi)

by

Elizabeth Archuleta

• LAST MODIFIED: 22 September 2021
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0223

Introduction

Wendy Rose, born Bronwen Elizabeth Edwards (b. 1948) in Oakland, California, is the author of several books of poetry and essays. Rose’s early poetry expresses the pain and trauma of her childhood, the loneliness and alienation she felt as a child, her lived experience as an urban, mixed-race Indian, and the disconnect she felt between being a social anthropologist and a poet. She lived in a predominantly white neighborhood near San Francisco with peers who teased her about her Native American background. She was also estranged from her Native heritage by a mixed-race mother, Betty Edwards, who refused to acknowledge her own Miwok background. Moreover, in spite of her father’s being full-blooded Hopi, tribal enrollment follows the mother’s bloodline, so she was unable to enroll. Her stepfather, Dick Edwards, was abusive, which added to her disaffection. Her poems express the rejection she felt from one side of her family and the separation that kept her from being fully embraced by the other half. Her search for identity and acceptance are themes in much of her early poetry. She eventually dropped out of high school and began to write, draw, and sing. She joined the American Indian Movement (AIM) and participated in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology (1976) and a master’s degree (1978) from the University of California, Berkeley. She taught Native American and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; California State University, Fresno; and Fresno City College, where she retired due to health issues. She edited the American Indian Quarterly for one year. Rose belongs to the first generation of contemporary Native American writers who emerged during the 1970s. While in college, she published her first poetry collection, Hopi Roadrunner Dancing (Rose 1973 [cited under Poetry]), written under the name Chiron Khanshendel. She followed this up with several more publications in the decades that followed, along with the anthropological study, Aboriginal Tattooing in California (Rose 1979b [cited under Research]). As an anthropologist and poet, she spoke out against what she called white shamanism as well as stereotypes and the appropriation and exploitation of American Indian cultures for consumer and tourist profit. Rose’s poetry appears in over sixty contemporary literature collections and has been translated into French, German, and Danish.

Works

Rose’s works include her more popular publications, beginning with her Poetry collections and ending with her latest publication. Her poetry is influenced by her role as an anthropologist, her childhood, and an adulthood spent making peace with her mixed-race identity and sense of alienation from society and politics. Also featured is an autobiographical essay that will help students place her writing in context with her lived experiences as poet, activist, academic, and artist; critiques of American Indian cultural appropriation, a subject that also appears in some of her poems; and anthropological research that explores tattooing in California Indian communities.

Select Reference Works

Reference works offer several entry points into Rose’s life and writing. While many repeat information about her life and writing, each source approaches her in different ways. Hacht and Hayes 2009 introduces students to Rose and shares the public reception her poetry received. Jaskoski 1997 traces Rose’s personal growth and development as reflected in her poetry. Ketteler, et al. 2020 brings together a general overview, criticism, and several scholarly excerpts and so provides the best introduction and overview for students. Malinowski and Abrams 1995 contextualizes select publications through Rose’s life. Marek 2005 provides a glimpse of Rose for students just beginning their research. Ruppert, et al. 1994 includes information not found elsewhere that students can consult, including address, career, professional memberships, and more.

• Hacht, Anne Marie, and Dwayne D. Hayes. “Rose, Wendy.” In Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of American Literature. Vol. 4, R–Z. 1393–1396. Detroit: Gale Research, 2009.

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  Delivers a literary and critical context for Rose’s work. Includes the reception her work received from critics, academics, and other Native American writers. The depth of this piece helps to introduce students to Rose’s poetry.

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• Jaskoski, Helen. “Wendy Rose.” In Native American Writers of the United States. Edited by Kenneth M. Roemer, 259–266. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997.

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  Traces Rose’s poetic development as her poems move from being preoccupied with identity to social criticism and then combining her role as scholar and subject. Includes close readings from her poems as examples of Rose’s personal growth, which would be helpful for students learning the skill of close reading.

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• Ketteler, Judi, Joyce Hart, and Pamela Steed Hill. For the White Poets Who Would Be Indian. Poetry for Students. Encyclopedia.com, 2020.

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  Analyzes one poem from the perspective of several scholars. Also includes an excerpt from an interview with Joseph Bruchac (Bruchac 1987 [cited under Interviews]) that provides further context. A wonderful guide for students intimidated by poetry.

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• Malinowski, Sharon, and George H. J. Abrams. “Wendy Rose.” In Notable Native Americans. Edited by Sharon Malinowski and George H. J. Abrams, 371–373. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.

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  Begins with a mention of her early publications and moves into later collections, ending with Bone Dance (Rose 1994b [cited under Poetry]). Claims The Halfbreed Chronicles (Rose 1985 [cited under Poetry]) is her strongest work. Includes Rose’s interests and other projects aside from her writing.

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• Marek, Jayne. “Rose, Wendy [Bronwen].” In Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature. Edited by Steven Serafin and Alfred Bendixen, 973. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005.

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  A very brief biographical-critical entry that previews Rose’s life and work.

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• Ruppert, James, Kenneth Lincoln, Robert Hauptman, and Jamake Highwater. “Wendy Rose.” In Native North American Literature: Biographical and Critical Information on Native Writers and Orators from the United States and Canada from Historical Times to the Present. Edited by Janet Witalec, Jeffrey Chapman, and Christopher Giroux 567–574. New York: Gale Research, 1994.

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  In addition to biographical and professional information on Rose, includes excerpts from two scholarly essays, reviews of her poetry, and sources for further study.

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Interviews

Rose’s interviews help trace her intellectual development based on questions interviewers repeatedly ask. Bruchac 1987 centers his questions around Native American song traditions and Rose’s poetry as songs. Coltelli 1990 covers a range of topics, including Rose’s thoughts on the meaning of “halfbreed.” Godfrey 2009 is the most recent interview. Hunter 1983 provides the most extensive interview, and Rose is much more detailed in her responses. Rose and Wiget 1980 presents Rose reading her poetry with Wiget interviewing her afterward.

• Bruchac, Joseph. “The Bones Are Alive.” In Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets. Edited by Joseph Bruchac, 249–269. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987.

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  Bruchac asks questions that focus on her poetry as songs, their roots, what “halfbreed” means to her, and how history informs her creative process.

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• Coltelli, Laura. “Wendy Rose.” In Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak. By Laura Coltelli, 121–133. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

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  A comprehensive interview that covers Rose as a writer, anthropologist, and artist; her thoughts on American Indian writers and the publishing industry; feminism; American Indian readers; being an American Indian professor; and how her writing has evolved.

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• Godfrey, Kathleen. “‘A Blanket Woven of All These Different Threads’: A Conversation with Wendy Rose.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 21.4 (Winter 2009): 71–83.

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  In her most recent interview, Rose reflects on her current life as well as her writing past and present. Interview focuses largely on Itch Like Crazy, her most recent publication.

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• Hunter, Carol. “A MELUS Interview: Wendy Rose.” MELUS 10.3 (1983): 67–87.

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  A good introduction to Rose on questions that cover her poetry, identity, and relationship to religion as well as her recognition of a global turn among Indigenous peoples. Unlike other interviews, this one includes discussions about her parents and their Native identities.

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• Rose, Wendy, and Andrew Wiget. Wendy Rose: Native American Poet. VHS. Las Cruces: Center for Educational Development, New Mexico State University, 1980.

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  A VHS tape of Rose reading her poetry followed with Wiget interviewing her.

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Archives

Archives provide insights into writers’ creative processes, especially materials that went into the creation of their published work. Also important for understanding their work and life are notes, correspondence, emails, and even discarded drafts, all of which provide insights into a writer’s life. Currently, three libraries hold archival materials on Rose with Rose and Schuler 1980 being an audiotaped interview.

• Rose, Wendy. Authors, Indian, Hopi, Rose, Wendy, Bibliography. Folder 1. Archival material uuuu, John Vaughan Library, Special Collections, VFA. Tahlequah. OK: Northeastern State University, n.d.

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  Contains a short bibliography of resources on Wendy Rose, Hopi author.

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• Rose, Wendy. Wendy Rose: Artist File. Artists Files. Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum of American Art Reading Room, n.d.

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  Contains a mixed collection of Rose’s published and unpublished materials. Items are not individually cataloged. See WorldCat.

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• Rose, Wendy, and Paula Schuler. Wendy Rose Is Interviewed by Paula Schuler in Fairbanks, Alaska. Sound recording, 2 audiotape reels, Chinook program numbers 8125, 8126. Fairbanks: Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, 1980.

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  Schuler interviews Rose at the Midnight Writer’s Conference. See WorldCat.

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American Indian Literary Criticism

Despite the abundance of critical and scholarly commentary on Native American poetry for more than three decades, no comprehensive examination dedicated to Rose’s work has been undertaken. Critiques and analyses of her poetry appear in scholarly journals and edited collections, offering a variety of perspectives and approaches to her work. Journals dedicated to American Indian studies and ethnic studies are important sources of critical analyses.

Literary Criticism

Scholars in English and American literary studies typically examine Rose’s poetry alongside other writing traditions and theories. Fast 1995 relies on philosophy of language and social theory to examine contemporary Native American poetry. Irmscher 1992 makes a surprising move by using Rose’s critiques of white shamanism to read two modernist poets who engaged in this practice well before the notion of “whiteshamanism” was coined or trending. Lincoln 1982 presents a thematic and stylistic analysis of Lost Copper (Rose 1980 [cited under Poetry]). Martanovschi 2020 is the first to bring Rose’s mother’s non-Native heritage into an examination of her writing.

• Fast, Robin Riley. “Borderland Voices in Contemporary Native American Poetry.” Contemporary Literature 36.3 (Fall 1995): 508–536.

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  Uses borderlands and border theory to understand contemporary Native American poetry. Claims Native American writers are aware of border conditions that fuel and nurture their creativity and language, including Rose.

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• Irmscher, Christoph. “Anthropological Roles: The Self and Its Others in T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams and Wendy Rose.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 75.4 (1992): 587–603.

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  Examines Eliot’s anthropological strivings and Williams’s attempt to cast himself in the role of the speaking “native.” As anthropologist and poet, Rose’s poem, “For the White Poets Who Would Be Indian,” directs itself against ethnographic language that objectifies Native Americans.

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• Lincoln, Kenneth. “Finding the Loss.” Parnassus: Poetry in Review 10.1 (1982): 285–296.

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  Explores Rose’s poetics of estrangement summoned from her experience of living on the margins of racial identity, culture, and languages. At the same time, anthropological writing informs poems that help her challenge images of the “pure-blood noble savage.”

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• Martanovschi, Ludmila. “‘As Much the Invader as the Native’: Investigating Immigrant and Indigenous Family Ties in Wendy Rose’s Itch Like Crazy.” In Migration, Diaspora, Exile: Narratives of Affiliation and Escape. Edited by Daniel Stein, Cathy C. Waegner, Geoffroy de Laforcade and Page R. Laws, 59–73. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2020.

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  Examines Rose’s latest publication as a series of poems that reconcile her mixed ancestry.

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Decolonial Theory

American Indians have much in common with other colonized peoples globally. Indigenous studies scholars have begun to call on Indigenous peoples to recognize themselves through knowledge of their own making. The author of Allen 2012 uses juxtapositions, relationalities, and genealogies rather than comparisons, causalities, and heritages in his examination of Maori, American Indian, Hawaiian, and Australian Aboriginal linguistic aesthetics. Barker 2005 explores the meaning of “sovereignty” in specific contexts involving American Indians’ connections with African Americans, Hawaiian identity, Samoan and Chamorro resistance, Makah whaling culture, and Puerto Rican independence. O’Mahony and Ó ’hAodha 2011 explores the parallels in Irish Celtic and Native American poetry—the relationship to nature and the environment, the concept of time, and the element of possibility all while trying to maintain a sense of community in postcolonial states. Pulitano 2007 brings together critical essays written by European scholars who are helping to bridge two continents and worldviews, thus contributing to the move by Indigenous studies toward transnationalism. Salaita 2016 traces the focus on Palestine in American Indian studies, defined broadly, that began in the early 2000s in order to trace the methodological shift from colonial to postcolonial to decolonial discourse in the field. The research in this section comes from scholars who are forging new methods in transnational studies and decolonization and would better serve advanced undergraduate and graduate students and faculty.

• Allen, Chadwick. “Indigenous Languaging: Empathy and Translation across Alphabetic, Aural, and Visual Texts.” In Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies. By Chadwick Allen, 143–192. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

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  Chapter 4 is one of three chapters in Part 2 that traces the development of trans-Indigenous methodologies, which center Indigenous histories and politics, cultures, and worldviews. Examines three of Rose’s poems.

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• Barker, Joanne. Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

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  Explores how sovereignty operates in Indigenous and colonized communities. Would pair well with Going to War with All My Relations (Rose 1993 [cited under Poetry]) when Rose adopted a global perspective, especially in her poem “Truganinny.”

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• O’Mahony, Jill M., and Mícheál Ó’ hAodha, eds. The Willow’s Whisper: A Transatlantic Compilation of Poetry from Ireland and Native America. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2011.

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  Shares Irish and Native American poetry about living with colonial forces that dominate one’s relationship to self, community, and the environment. Allows students to position Rose’s poetry globally through the historical parallels experienced by other colonized peoples.

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• Pulitano, Elvira, ed. Transatlantic Voices: Interpretations of Native North American Literatures. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

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  Collection includes critical essays by European scholars whose methods and theories explore cross-cultural exchanges tied to Native-European encounters. The examination of Rose’s poetry in Gray 2007 (cited under Chapters and Edited Collections) can be understood in context with the other writers included in this collection.

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• Salaita, Steven. “Inter/National Aesthetics: Palestinians in Native Poetry.” In Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine. By Steven Salaita, 103–132. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

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  Salaita examines the role Palestine played in the development of theories of decolonization in American Indian studies that prioritize liberation. Chapter 4 focuses on Native American poets who include Palestine in their work.

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Pedagogy

For instructors unfamiliar with Native American and Indigenous studies, many resources provide an entry into understanding and teaching from several disciplinary perspectives. Bayne offers eighth-grade instructors some developed materials to explore, through poetry, how American Indians have maintained their cultures and identities. King, et al. 2015 focuses on teaching Indigenous rhetorics in writing classes. Lopenzina 2020 is a book-length overview for students and educators unfamiliar with Native American literature. It examines oral traditions, novels, and poetry alongside historical developments and issues that influenced the literature, and it contains lesson plans and a syllabus that incorporates a poem by Rose. Saint Clair 1993 is one of five general background essays included in a larger collection of essays that explore Native American literature in relationship to American culture. Wiget 1996 presents a broad overview of Native American literature.

• Bayne, Linn M. Finding New Voices: Native American Poets. In Recent American Poetry: Expanding the Canon. Curricular Resources, 1991, Volume IV, Unit 1 (91.04.01), Section 1. New Haven, CT: Yale–New Haven Teachers Institute.

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  Finds parallels between teens’ identity issues and those of American Indians explored in poetry in order to make the poems approachable. This eighth-grade unit includes a narrative, three lesson plans, and a teacher and student bibliography.

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• King, Lisa, Rose Gubele, Joyce Rain Anderson, eds. Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2015.

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  Provides guidance in teaching key concepts and classroom strategies that help students move past American Indian stereotypes in rhetoric and writing classes. Includes accompanying sample materials at the Survivance Sovereignty Story online.

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• Lopenzina, Drew. “‘Many of Our Songs Are Maps’: Poetry in the Native American Literary Renaissance and Beyond.” In The Routledge Introduction to Native American Literature. By Drew Lopenzina, 113–133. New York: Routledge, 2020.

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  Presents the period of activism dubbed the “Native American Renaissance” and provides close readings of the authors and artists who emerged during this time period, including poems from Rose’s Halfbreed Chronicles (Rose 1985 [cited under Poetry]).

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• Saint Clair, Janet. “Fighting for Her Life: The Mixed-Blood Woman’s Insistence upon Self-Hood.” In Critical Perspectives on Native American Fiction. Edited by Richard F. Fleck, 46–53. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1993.

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  Examines the fictionalization of mixed-blood identity and the protagonists’ refusal to submit to displacement in the multiple categories from which they are excluded. Rose’s poetry of alienation, identity, and exclusion would pair well with fiction that explores the same topics.

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• Wiget, Andrew. Handbook of Native American Literature. New York: Garland, 1996.

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  Compiles scholarly essays on the emergence of Native American literature and its development. Provides a good overview of the leading Native American poets and novelists who are Rose’s contemporaries.

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