Alison Hedge Coke
Reynolds Endowed Chair, 308.865.8672
Poetry Society of America Drake Frost Medal recipient Marilyn Nelson will present her work as a part of the University of Nebraska at Kearney fifth annual Literary Cranefest on Tuesday, March 27.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 8 p.m. in the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) Brick Gallery. MONA is located at 2401 Central Ave.
Nelson has written or translated 14 books including: “A Wreath for Emmett Till”; “Carver: A Life in Poems”; “The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems,” which was a finalist for the 1998 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the 1997 National Book Award and the PEN Winship Award; and “The Homeplace,” which won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award.
In addition, Nelson is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship and the 1990 Connecticut Arts Award. From 2001 – 2006, she was the Poet Laureate of Connecticut.
Nelson, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1946, was raised on military bases and began writing when she was in elementary school. She received her bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Davis, and earned postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota. She is currently a professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
The Cranefest was made possible through grants from the Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Humanities Council, Kearney Area Community Foundation, the UNK Faculty Senate Artists and Lecturers Committee, the Women’s Studies Program and the Ethnic Studies Program.
