Best of: Poet Nikky Finney on the accessibility of poetry, mentorship and more
Nikky Finney is professor at the University of South Carolina, but she’s in Illinois this week for a series of events at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, sponsored by the school’s Humanities Research Institute. Photo courtesy Noah Adams/NPR
Poet Nikky Finney's writing reckons with what it means to be a woman and Black in America and in the South, in the past and today. Her most recent collection is called “Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry.” Finney’s work has earned her accolades, including the National Book Award for poetry in 2011, for another collection, called “Head Off & Split.”
She joined The 21st before she gave a talk at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center in Urbana.
This conversation originally aired April 20, 2023.
GUEST:
Nikky Finney
Author, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry and Head Off & Split | Professor of Creative Writing and Southern Letters, University of South Carolina
Prepared for web by Owen Henderson
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