Maurice Kenny

Maurice Frank Kenny (August 16, 1929 – April 16, 2016) was an American poet who identified as Mohawk descent.

Life Maurice Frank Kenny was born on August 16, 1929, in Watertown, New York. He identified his father as being of Mohawk and Irish ancestry, from Canada and his mother, who was born in Upstate New York, as being of English and Seneca ancestry.

The Kenny family, which also included two older sisters, lived in Watertown and Kenny spend his school years there and his summers on his relatives' farm in nearby Cape Vincent until his parents separated when he was "eleven or twelve". His mother moved to Bayonne, New Jersey and his father remained in Watertown, with young Maurice remaining predominantly in his father's custody for most of his adolescence. He briefly stayed with friends of his mother's in Syracuse, New York before running away, after which he moved to his mother's residence in Bayonne when he was sixteen. Rather than attending school there, Kenny skipped classes regularly, preferring to go into Manhattan and seek autographs from stars of film and theatre outside hotels. In 2002, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. In 2000, the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers awarded Kenny the Elder Recognition Award. In 1995, he received an honorary doctorate from St. Lawrence University. In 1984, The Mama Poems received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. In 1983, Wounds Beneath the Flesh received Bloomsbury Review'''s award for best anthology. Kenny received a National Public Radio Award for Broadcasting for a radio production of his poem "Dug-Out."

Nominations In 1996, On Second Thought (book)|On Second Thought was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in fiction. Kenny was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, for his book Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues and the collection Between Two Rivers.

Poetry The Hopeless Kill, Watertown Daily Times (1956) Dead Letters Sent, and Other Poems, Troubadour Press (1958) Is Summer This Bear, Chauncy Press (1985) Greyhounding This America: Poems and Dialog by Maurice Kenny, Heidelberg Graphics (1988) On Second Thought: A Compilation, University of Oklahoma Press (1995) Connotations, White Pine Press (2008) Monahsetah, Resistance, and Other Markings on Turtle’s Back, Mongrel Empire (2017) Wild Daisies from the Side of the Road: A Collective Tribute to Maurice Kenny, Many Moons Press (2018)

Prose Rain and Other Fictions, White Pine (1991)Backward to Forward: Prose Pieces, White Pine (1997)Tortured Skins and Other Fictions, Michigan State University Press (2000)Angry Rain: A Memoir,'' State University of New York Press (October 2018)