| Intro | Poet |
| Is | Journalist |
| From | United States of America |
| Type | Journalism |
| Gender | female |
| Birth | 7 November 1961, Charlotte |
| Age: | 58 years |
Kim Roberts (born November 7, 1961) is an American poet, editor, and literary historian residing in Washington, D.C.
Life
Roberts was born November 7, 1961, in Charlotte, North Carolina. She received a BFA from Emerson College and an MFA from the University of Arizona.
She is the founder of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, editor of the anthology Full Moon On K Street: Poems About Washington DC (Plan B Press, 2010), and author of the poetry books Fortune’s Favor: Scott In Antarctica (Poetry Mutual Press, 2015), Animal Magnetism (Pearl Editions, 2011), The Kimnama (Poetry Mutual/Vrzhu Press, 2007), and The Wishbone Galaxy (Washington Writers Publishing House, 1994). Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and literary journals throughout the US, and internationally. The Kimnama is a book-length poem that chronicles her experiences during a period of residence in India. Fortune’s Favor: Scott In Antarctica is a book-length poem based on the journals of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, whose Terra Nova Expedition was the second to reach the South Pole in 1912.
Roberts has seen her work adapted to music by Arc of Ones, as well as by classical composer Daron Aric Hagen. Several poems have been choreographed by Jane Franklin Dance Company and performed at various venues including the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage.
Washington, D.C. is the source of much inspiration for Roberts. She has developed numerous tours for schools, community groups, and annual Big Read celebrations highlighting the literary and cultural history of the city. Roberts frequently leads walking tours of the Harlem Renaissance-era writers in the greater U Street neighborhood. Roberts’s research on Walt Whitman’s decade in residence of Washington, DC was featured in The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, as well as being referenced in subsequent articles in The Washington Post and The Washington Times, features on radio essays on stations WAMU and WPFW, and on panels for Whitman conferences at Rutgers University, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and at the annual Washington Historical Studies Conference. Roberts was the Coordinator of the city-wide festival in 2005, “DC Celebrates Whitman: 150 Years of Leaves of Grass.” Roberts has presented “The Rise of DC’s Black Intelligentsia: Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Dunbar-Nelson in LeDroit Park” and “Henry Adams in Lafayette Square” at DC Historical Studies Conferences. Her projects have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Humanities Council of Washington, DC, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the District of Columbia Public Library.
Awards
Roberts is the winner of the 2009 Pearl Poetry Prize for her manuscript, “Animal Magnetism.” In 2010, she won the Washington Online Award for “Contributions to the DC Literary Community.” In 2008, she was awarded an Independent Voice Award from the Capital BookFest. Roberts is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Humanities Council of Washington. She has been awarded writer’s residencies at fourteen artist colonies across the United States.