Rate My Professor Marilyn Nelson

Marilyn Nelson is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she taught from 1978 until 2002. A prominent scholar and creative writer in the field of Literature, she holds a BA in English from the University of California, Davis (1968), an MA in English from the University of Pennsylvania (1970), and a PhD in English from the University of Minnesota (1979). Nelson's extensive teaching career encompasses full-time positions at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon; Nr. Nissum Seminarium in Denmark; St. Olaf College; and the University of Delaware. She has also served as a visiting professor at Reed College, Vanderbilt University, New York University, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the University of the South, Baruch College of the City University of New York, the University of Hamburg in Germany, Paul Valéry University in France, and various low-residency MFA programs.

Nelson's academic interests and creative output center on poetry, young adult literature, and literary translation, with a particular emphasis on Danish poetry. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and chapbooks. Major poetry collections include Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996–2011 (Louisiana State University Press, 2012), The Cachoeira Tales, and Other Poems (2005), The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (1997), Magnificat (1994), The Homeplace (1990), Mama’s Promises (1985), and For the Body (1978). Her acclaimed young adult books feature American Ace (Dial Books, 2017), How I Discovered Poetry (Dial Books, 2014), Carver: A Life in Poems (Front Street, 2001), A Wreath for Emmett Till (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2005), Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem (Front Street, 2004), and The Freedom Business (Front Street, 2008). Translations include Halfdan Rasmussen’s A Little Bitty Man and Other Poems for the Very Young (Candlewick, 2011) and The Ladder (Candlewick, 2006). Nelson has garnered significant recognition, including the Wallace Stevens Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the Academy of American Poets (2022), the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America (2012), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (2019), the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature (2017), fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, two Pushcart Prizes, and three National Book Award nominations. She served as Connecticut Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2006, was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2013, founded and directed Soul Mountain Retreat from 2004 to 2010, and holds the position of Poet-in-Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.