Rosaly DeMaios Roffman — Sharon Israel Poet

LISTEN to my 2017 WIOX Radio conversation with transcendent poet Rosaly DeMaios Roffman on poetry’s power to “fix, change and heal things real life cannot.”

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, internationally acclaimed poet and writer, is Professor Emerita at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where she taught creative writing, myth and literature, Japanese and Chinese Literature in Translation and founded the IUP Center for the Study of Myth and Folklore in the 1970’s. In 2002, Roffman established the Rossaly DeMaios Roffman Collection Center for the Study of Myth and Folklore, which grew into the IUP Dessy-Roffman Myth Collaborative, formally dedicated on April 24th, 2021 (https://www.iup.edu/news-item.aspx?id=294439&blogid=6121).

Among her myriad accomplishments, Roffman co-edited the prize-winning LIFE ON THE LINE, and is the author of Going To Bed Whole, TOTTERING PALACES, THE APPROXIMATE MESSAGE and, IN THE FALL OF A SPARROW. Her latest book I WANT TO THANK MY EYES was published by Tebot-Bach in 2012. As the recipient of a distinguished faculty award in the arts, Roffman was guest poet on the BBC program “Writer from Abroad.” Roffman collaborated extensively with other writers, artists and composers and has facilitated Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop since 2099.

“Roffman’s poetry of discovery, courage, devotion and gratitude inspires the reader toward healing and wholeness… “ I Want to Thank My Eyes is food for the soul, and makes us hungry for more.” -Joan E. Bauer, Author of The Almost Sound of Drowning