About Nikky Finney
Nikky Finney is an American poet. She was the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a position at the University of South Carolina as the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Southern Letters and Literature. An alumna of Talladega College, and author of four books of poetry and a short-story cycle, Finney is an advocate for social justice and cultural preservation. Her honors include the 2011 National Book Award for her collection Head Off & Split. Finney is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective. In 1994, Ernest Finney, Jr., was appointed by the State Legislature as the first African-American Chief Justice of South Carolina since Reconstruction. Finney's targeted result of her independent years was achieved: On Wings Made of Gauze, her first book of poems, was completed in Atlanta. After publication of her first book of poems, Finney relocated to the Bay Area, where she involved herself with progressive causes, and continued independent work as a poet. Finney took a leave from the University of Kentucky in 1999 to hold the Goode Chair in the Humanities at Berea College (founded in 1855), the first interracial and coeducational college in the South.
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