Accomplished poet, children’s verse author, and translator Marilyn Nelson (1946—) was born in Cleveland, Ohio into a military family. She is the daughter of one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen, and her mother was a teacher. She spent much of her youth living on different military bases and began writing poetry when in elementary school. Her poetry carries with it a unique perspective on the United States military and its families. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Davis and holds post-graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota. In addition to teaching at the University of Connecticut, Nelson also teaches at the University of Delaware and has taught poetry at West Point.

The recipient of various poetry awards and recognitions, Nelson has been a finalist for the National Book Award for her collections The Homeplace, The Fields of Praise, and Carver: A Life in Poems. The latter was also honored with the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, was given the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, and was named a Newbery Honor Book and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.

Recently, Nelson opened a writer’s colony, Soul Mountain Retreat, out of her home in Connecticut and was a visiting workshop leader for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Operation Homecoming initiative. Nelson is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and is the Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut.