Marilyn Nelson (ššØš«š§ April 26, 1946) is an American poet, translator, biographer, and š¤š©šŖšš„ren’s book author. She is a professor emeritus at theĀ University of Connecticut, and the formerĀ Poet Laureate of Connecticut.
She is a winner of theĀ Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, theĀ NSK Neustadt Prize for Childrenās Literature, and theĀ Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994, she published under the nameĀ Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and š¤š©šŖšš„ren. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2014, entitledĀ How I Discovered Poetry.
Early life
Nelson was ššØš«š§ on April 26, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Melvin M. Nelson, a Tuskegee Airman and a U.S. serviceman in the Air Force, and Johnnie Mitchell Nelson, a teacher and pianist. She grew up on military bases and moved all across the United States throughout her š¤š©šŖšš„hood. She began writing while in elementary school, yet discovered her love for poetry while attending a segregated middle school in Texas. Here, she was introduced to the work of African-American poets.
Nelson earned a B.A. degree from the University of California-Davis, an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1979.
Career
In 1978, Nelson became a professor of English at theĀ University of ConnecticutĀ and published her first book, the poetry collectionĀ For the Body. From 2001 to 2006, she served as poet laureate of the State of Connecticut. During this time, she also founded the Soul Mountain Retreat. She retired professor emeritus from the University of Connecticut in 2002 yet continued to actively write.
Nelson’s poetry has a dominant family aspect, recovery for African-American history as well as the search for sacred in everyday life.[8] She is also known for incorporating the African-American oral tradition into her work.Ā Her poetry collections includeĀ The Homeplace (Louisiana State University Press), which won the 1992Ā Anisfield-Wolf Book Award[9]Ā and was a finalist for the 1991Ā National Book Award; andĀ The Fields Of Praise: New And Selected Poems (Louisiana State University Press), which won theĀ Poets’ PrizeĀ in 1999 and was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award.
Her honors include two NEA creative writing fellowships, the 1990 Connecticut Arts Award, a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, and a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2011, she spent a semester as a Brown Foundation Fellow at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. In 2012, the Poetry Society of America awarded her the Frost Medal.Ā In 2013, Nelson was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.