In 1982, Nebraska Wesleyan University English professor William Kloefkorn was appointed Nebraska state poet. That same year, Twyla Hansen, Nebraska Wesleyan’s new head groundskeeper, enrolled in Kloefkorn’s “Introduction to Poetry” class.
Thirty-one years later Hansen was appointed as Kloefkorn’s successor by Governor Dave Heineman who named her Nebraska’s first female state poet on November 14, 2013.
Hansen returns to her roots on the Nebraska Wesleyan campus on Tuesday, April 15, when she delivers the inaugural lecture at the William C. Kloefkorn Nebraska Writers Series. Her lecture and reading, “Dirt Songs and Other Poems” begins at 7 p.m. in Callen Conference Center, located on the lower level of the Smith-Curtis Administration Building.
Hansen’s newest book, “Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet” with Linda M. Hasselstrom won a 2012 Nebraska Book Award and was a finalist for the 2012 WILLA Literary Award and the 2012 High Plains Book Award. She has five previous poetry books, including “POTATO SOUP,” a 2004 Nebraska Book Award winner.
Hansen’s writing has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Prairie Fire Newspaper, Organization & Environment, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West, A Contemporary Reader for Creative Writing, among many others.
She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and has worked as a horticulturist on college campuses and in organic farming certification.
A reception and book signing will follow her lecture and reading. The William C. Kloefkorn Nebraska Writers Series is free and open to the public, and has been underwritten by Dr. Ruth Meyer (‘64).
The lecture will also be webcast live on the Nebraska Wesleyan University website.