Marilyn Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of a school teacher and a U. S. serviceman, a member of the last graduating class of Tuskegee Airmen. She is the author or translator of more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults and children. Her critically acclaimed books for young adults include, among others, A Wreath for Emmett Till, Fortune’s Bones, My Seneca Village, and the ground breaking Carver: A Life in Poems, a Newbery Honor Book and recipient of the Boston Globe/Hornbook and the Flora Stieglitz Straus Awards. Her memoir How I Discovered Poetry, written in a series of 50 poems, is a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2014.
Of Marilyn’s nine poetry collections for adults, The Homeplace won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award; The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems received the 1998 Poets’ Prize, the PEN Winship Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize; and Faster Than Light earned the 2013 Milton Kessler Poetry Award.
A three-time finalist for the National Book Award, Marilyn has been honored with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts; the Connecticut Arts Award; the Department of the Army’s Commander’s Award for Public Service; and the Frost Medal, the Poetry Society of America’s award for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry.” She currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and is Poet-in-Residence of The Poets Corner at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. A professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, Marilyn was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001– 2006, and founding director of Soul Mountain Retreat, a writers’ colony, 2004-2010.
Brief Bio
Marilyn Nelson is the author or translator of more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults and children. Her critically acclaimed books for young adults include A Wreath for Emmett Till and the ground breaking Carver: A Life in Poems, a Newbery Honor Book. Of Marilyn’s nine poetry collections for adults, The Homeplace won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award; and The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems received the 1998 Poets’ Prize, the PEN Winship Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize. A three-time finalist for the National Book Award, her many honors include the Frost Medal, the Poetry Society of America’s award for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry,” and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. A professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, she currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001– 2006.