He directed her to the work of Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, and Denise Levertov, who all had strong influences on her work. As a student at the University of New Mexico, she reached out to a poetry professor, Robert Creeley, for poetic advice. She earned a PhD at the University of New Mexico, where she worked as a professor and began research on tribal religions. Īllen received a BA and MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon. Her brother, Lee Francis, was a Laguna Pueblo- Anishinaabe poet, storyteller, and educator.Īllen first went to a mission school and graduated in 1957 from a boarding school called the "Sisters of Charity" located in Albuquerque. Her Lebanese-American father, Elias Lee Francis, owned a local store, the Cubero Trading Company, and later served as the lieutenant governor of New Mexico from 1967 to 1970. Of mixed Laguna, Sioux, Scottish, and Lebanese-American descent, Allen always identified most closely with the Laguna, among whom she spent her childhood and upbringing. It stimulated other scholarly work by feminist and Native American writers.īorn Paula Marie Francis in Albuquerque, New Mexico Allen grew up in Cubero, New Mexico, a Spanish-Mexican land grant village bordering the Laguna Pueblo reservation. In addition to her literary work, in 1986 she published a major study on the role of women in American Indian traditions, arguing that Europeans had de-emphasized the role of women in their accounts of native life because of their own patriarchal societies. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies of Native American women. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes.
Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. Paula Gunn Allen (Octo– May 29, 2008) was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. University of Oregon, University of New Mexico
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