Louis Jenkins

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.

Personal life Louis Burke Jenkins He attended Wichita State University from 1967 to 1969.

Literary awards and honors 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. and 1984. He also was honored with the George Morrison award and Loft-McKnight Fellowship.

Acting and Nice Fish with Mark Rylance Jenkins appeared in the minor role of Earl in the 2016 film Blood Stripe and as a therapist in the 1964 film Lilith. 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 During 2008-2013 Rylance transformed a sequence of Jenkins’ prose poems into the play Nice Fish which premiered on April 6, 2013, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. A revised production of the play opened at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 17, 2016. During the Cambridge run of Nice Fish Jenkins played the role of Wayne, a kind of Old Man Winter figure in the revised version of the play.