Dorothy Roberts

Dorothy Gostwick Roberts (July 6, 1906 - April 23, 1993) was a Canadian poet who spent most of her adult life in the United States.

Life
Roberts was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the third child of Francis (Allan) Roberts and poet and novelist Theodore Goodridge Roberts. Confederation Poet Sir Charles G.D. Roberts was her uncle. As a child she lived in England, France, Ottawa, and Toronto; the family returned to Fredericton and settled down when she was in her teens.

Dorothy Roberts attended both the University of New Brunswick and Connecticut State University. She then worked as a reporter for the Fredericton Daily Mail, and began publishing poetry and stories. Her first collection of poetry, a chapbook issued under the name "Gostwick Roberts", was published in 1927.

In 1929 Roberts married August R. Leisner, and moved with him to the United States in 1940. The couple settled in Pennsylvania, where Leisner was a held a professorship of English at a state college. They had two children, Anne (born in 1931) and John (born in 1937). From 1938 to 1954 Roberts worked on a novel, which was never published.

She died in Pennsylvania in 1993.

Publications

 * Songs for Swift Feet (as Gostwick Roberts). Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1927.
 * Twice To Flame. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1961.
 * Extended. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1967.
 * In the Flight of Stars. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1991.
 * The Self of Loss: New and Selected Poems. Fredericton, NB: Fredericton: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1976.