About Marilyn Nelson
Marilyn Nelson (born April 26, 1946) is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and the Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994, she published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and children. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry. == Early life == Nelson was born on April 26, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Melvin M. Nelson, a Tuskegee Airman and a U.S. serviceman in the Air Force, and Johnnie Mitchell Nelson, a teacher and pianist. She grew up on military bases and moved all across the United States throughout her childhood. She began writing while in elementary school, yet discovered her love for poetry while attending a segregated middle school in Texas. Here, she was introduced to the work of African-American poets.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.