Louis Jenkins (poet)

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

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

Louis Jenkins’ book, Nice Fish, was winner of the Minnesota Book Award in 1995, 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. He was a Bush Foundation Fellow in 1979 and 1984. He also was honored with the George Morrison award and Loft-McKnight Fellowship.

Louis Burke Jenkins (October 28, 1942 – December 21, 2019) was an American prose poet. He lived in Duluth, Minnesota, with his wife Ann for over four decades, beginning in 1971. 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 and was also featured on The Writer's Almanac and on the Northern Lights TV Series.

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