Nikky Finney

Nikky Finney is an American poet born in 1957 in Conway, South Carolina. She grew up in a family that fought for civil rights in the South, and her work is rooted in that tradition of witness and justice. She received her B.A. from Talladega College and studied with Toni Cade Bambara at Atlanta University. Her collection Head Off and Split: Poems (2011) won the National Book Award for Poetry. The collection's centerpiece poem, about Fannie Lou Hamer, and its searing engagement with racial violence and resilience produced one of the most celebrated acceptance speeches in National Book Award history. She is the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina. Finney's other poetry collections include On Wings Made of Gauze (1985), Rice (1995), and The World Is Round (2003). She is co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets collective and has received the Benjamin Franklin Award, the L.A. Times Book Prize, and fellowships from the NEA.