A Sweetness Rising:
New and Selected Poems

Roberta Spear
Edited with an Introduction by Philip Levine

Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-59714-063-8, $12.95
176 pages (5.5 x 8.5)

A Great Valley Book

The poems of a critically acclaimed, contemporary California poet

The first retrospective of the life's work of Roberta Spear (1948–2003), A Sweetness Rising includes newly published work as well as poems from her previous volumes. Nationally acclaimed and admired by both readers and peers, she wrote poems that touch people by presenting daily life in unexpected ways. In the words of Philip Levine, “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 to sing, moving and touching readers for as long as people care about American poetry.”

About the Poet:

Roberta Spear was born in 1948 in Hanford, California, in the state’s Central Valley. She studied with Philip Levine and Peter Everwine at California State University, Fresno, where she received her B.A. and master’s degrees. It was there she met, and in some ways collaborated with, her peers David St. John, Larry Levis, and Greg Pape. Her three published collections of poetry, Silks, Taking to Water, and The Pilgrim among Us, have been critically acclaimed. Awards for her work include the James D. Phelan Award, the PEN, Los Angeles Center’s Poetry Award, and writing grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.