Marilyn Nelson, GPC 1999-2000
Marilyn Nelson is the author or translator of twelve books and three chapbooks, including books of poems for children as well as adult readers. Her book, The Homeplace, won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award. The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems won the 1998 Poets' Prize and was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award, the PEN Winship Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize. Carver: A Life in Poems won the 2001 Boston Globe/Hornbook Award and the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award, a Newbery Honor Book, and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Fortune’s Bones was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and won the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry. A Wreath for Emmett Till won the 2005 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and was a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book, a 2006 Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and a 2006 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book. The Cachoiera Tales and Other Poems won the L.E. Phillabaum Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Her other works include The Freedom Business: Connecticut Landscapes Through the Eyes of Venture Smith (2005), Miss Crandell’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color (2007), Freedom Business: Including a Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture (co-authored with Debora Miurhead, 2008), Beautiful Ballerina (2009), Sweethearts of Rhythm (2009), and Snook Alone (2010). Her honors include two NEA creative writing fellowships, the 1990 Connecticut Arts Award, an A.C.L.S. Contemplative Practices Fellowship, a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, and a fellowship from the J.S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Nelson is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut; founder and director of Soul Mountain Retreat, a small writers’ colony; and was Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut from 2001-2006.
Additional Links:
“Dusting,” “Churchgoing,” “Minor Miracle,” “Daughters, 1900,” “Mama’s Promise,” and “The House on Moscow Street” at afropoets
"Cachoeira," "Churchgoing," "Daughters, 1900," "Dusting," "Mama's Promise," "Minor Miracle," "The House on Moscow Street"
Audio of Nelson reading her poems from "The Freedom Business: Connecticut Landscapes Through the Eyes of Venture Smith," The Florence Griswold Museum (2007)
"'Emmett Till': A Poem of Sorrow, and Hope," article, National Public Radio (August 2006); includes audio of "A Wreath for Emmett Till"
"The Potatoes," "Want," and "Wound" (text and audio), Blackbird (Spring 2002)
"Blessing the Boats" and "Memento"
Interview with Diane Osen, The National Book Foundation (2007)