Louis Burke Jenkins (October 28, 1942 – December 21, 2019)[1] was an American prose poet. He lived in Duluth, Minnesota, with his wife Ann for over four decades,[2] beginning in 1971.[3] He also lived in Bloomington, Minnesota. His poems have been published in a number of literary magazines and anthologies. Jenkins was a guest on A Prairie Home Companion numerous times[4] and was also featured on The Writer's Almanac [5] and on the Northern Lights TV Series.

Personal life

Louis Burke Jenkins[6] was born October 28, 1942 in Enid, Oklahoma to Burke Jenkins and Genevieve (née Webring).[7][8][1] He attended Wichita State University from 1967 to 1969.[1] Jenkins married Sandra Brashear in 1963, divorcing in 1968, and then married librarian Ann Jacobson in 1970,[1] relocating to Minnesota in 1971. He has a son named Lars.[1]

Jenkins died at his home in Bloomington on December 21, 2019, at age 77.[7]

Literary awards and honors

Louis Jenkins’ book, Nice Fish, was winner of the Minnesota Book Award in 1995,[8] and his book Just Above Water won the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award in 1997. Jenkins was a featured poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in 1996 and at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in England in 2007.[2] He was a Bush Foundation Fellow[9] in 1979[10] and 1984.[6] He also was honored with the George Morrison award and Loft-McKnight Fellowship.[9]

Acting and work with Mark Rylance

Actor Mark Rylance recited works by Jenkins[11] in lieu of formal acceptance speeches after winning a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for the play Boeing-Boeing in 2008[12] and after winning his Tony Award for the play Jerusalem in 2011.[13] Rylance then transformed Jenkins’ poetry into the play Nice Fish,[12] and Jenkins played Old Man Winter in a production of that play at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2016.[12] Jenkins also appeared in the minor role of Earl in the 2016 film Blood Stripe and as a therapist in the 1964 film Lilith.[14]

Selected bibliography

Books

• Where Your House Is Now: New and Selected Prose Poems (Nodin Press, 2019)
• In the Sun Out of the Wind (Will o' the Wisp Books, 2017)
• Before You Know It: Prose Poems 1970-2005 (Will o' the Wisp Books, 2009)
• European Shoes (Will o' the Wisp Books, 2008)
• North of the Cities (Will o' the Wisp Books, 2007)
• Four Places on Lake Superior’s North Shore (Red Dragonfly Press, 2005)
• Distance From the Sun (Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, 2004)
• Sea Smoke (Holy Cow! Press, 2004)
• The Winter Road (Holy Cow! Press, 2000)
• Just Above Water (Holy Cow! Press, 1997)
• Nice Fish: New and Selected Prose Poems (Holy Cow! Press, 1995)
• All Tangled Up With the Living (Nineties Press, 1991)
• An Almost Human Gesture (Eighties Press and Ally Press, 1987)
• The Water's Easy Reach:Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 1985)
• The Well Digger's Wife (Minnesota Writer's Publishing House Booklet No. 2, 1973)
• Will Small: The Journey (White Pine Press, 1987)

Anthologies

• Good Poems for Hard Times Garrison Keillor, ed. (Viking, 2005)
• Great American Prose Poems David Lehman, ed. (Scribner, 2003)
• Poetry 180 Billy Collins, ed. (Random House, 2003)
• No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Prose Poets (Tupelo Press, 2003)
• Are You Experienced? (University of Iowa Press, 2003)
• Stories From Where We Live (Milkweed Editions, 2003)
• Good Poems Garrison Keillor, ed. (Viking, 2002)
• The Thousands, Number One (Thousands Press, 2001)
• The Best of the Prose Poem (Providence College, Providence, RI, 2000)
• The Best American Poetry 1999 David Lehman, ed. (Scribner, 1999)
• Literature and Its Writers (Bedford Books, Boston, 1997)
• The Plain Truth of Things (Harper Collins, 1997)
• The Party Train: A Collection North American Prose Poetry (New Rivers Press, 1996)
• Literature: The Evolving Canon Sven Birkerts, ed. (Allyn and Bacon, 1993)
• Men of Our Time (University of Georgia Press, 1992)
• The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart Bly, Hillman and Meade, eds.(Harper Collins, 1992)
• Reading Rooms (Doubleday,1991)
• The Best of Crazyhorse (University of Arkansas Press, 1990)
• Minnesota Writes: Poetry (Milkweed Books, 1987)
• News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness Robert Bly, ed. (Sierra Club Books, 1980)
• Heartland II: Poets of the Midwest (Northern Illinois University Press, 1975)

Audio recordings

• Any Way in the World (Thousands Press, 2000)

Plays

• Nice Fish (with Mark Rylance, 2013, Guthrie Theater)[15]

References

External links

• Author's Current Publisher
• Minnesota Public Radio 2007 Interview
• MNArtists.org 2007 Interview
• Interview with Peter Shea, 2014
• Interview with Magma Poetry
• Interview with Steve Benson on Northern Lights TV Series #333 (1995)
• Interview with Connie Wanek at the 1998 Marshall Writer's Festival on Northern Lights TV Series #404 (1998)