The University of Arizona Press
Date: August 27, 2026
Time: 1:30-2:45 p.m., PDT
Place: The Graduate Hotel, 66 E 6th Ave, Eugene, Oregon
Editors of This Music: Record of a Poet Becoming present a roundtable on the book and collective process at the Western Literature Association Conference in August. The city now known as Eugene has long been a gathering space for Kalapuya and other Indigenous peoples and a home to a diverse ecology of oak savannahs, camas fields, wapato habitats, salmon fisheries, managed forests, and more than human relations. This year’s conference theme is “Relationality & Reciprocity in Kalapuya Ilihi.”
This Music celebrates work of celebrated Koyoonk’auwi (Concow) poet and essayist Janice Gould. It includes Gould’s final work completed posthumously by a collective of close friends and literary scholars: Jennifer Elise Foerster, Deborah A. Miranda, Lisa Tatonetti, Kim Shuck, Marie-Elise Wheatwind, and Joy Harjo.
The Roundtable is titled “Photos, Prose Poems & a Chorus of Praise: An Editorial Collective Celebrates Janice Gould’s This Music: Record of a Poet Becoming,” and will be chaired by Lisa Tatonetti, Kansas State University. Community members are welcome to attend this roundtable without having to pay the conference fee.
This roundtable tells two stories: prose poems that wander through Oregon, Washington, California and Colorado landscapes and cultures, and the journey of a posthumous manuscript in search of a publisher who believes in the non-linear and everlasting power of poetry. Poet, scholar, musician and Two-Spirit Janice Gould, whose Koyangk’auwi tribal roots deeply influenced all aspects of her life, was born April 1, 1949, and walked on to her Ancestors on June 28, 2019.
Presentations that will be part of the roundtable are:
“Sensual and Magical Language: Janice Gould in Historical Context,” by Lisa Tatonetti, Kansas State University; “A Masterclass In Relationship And Landscape,” by Deborah Miranda, Emerita, Washington and Lee University; “Janice Gould’s Lyric Memoir: A Publishing Perspective,” by Elizabeth Wilder, Editor, The University of Arizona Press; and “A Mixtape Of Memory” by writer and partner to Janice Gould, Marie-Elise Wheatwind.
About the book:
Told through lyrical prose poems and personal photographs, this memoir traces Gould’s life as a queer/Two-Spirit California Native coming of age in the late 1960s, navigating family, identity, activism, and art. With reflections on her mixed-blood heritage, her experiences in lesbian feminist circles, and her journey as a poet and musician, Gould’s voice resonates with clarity, tenderness, and fierce honesty.
This Music is a vital contribution to Indigenous and LGBTQ+ literatures, offering readers a rare and powerful account of gender, sexuality, and Native identity in mid-century and contemporary America. As the one hundredth volume in the Sun Tracks series, this work honors Gould’s legacy while expanding the canon of poetic memoir. Ideal for readers of poetry, memoir, and Indigenous literature, this book will resonate deeply with scholars, students, and anyone drawn to stories of resilience, creativity, and the enduring power of memory.
