Born to a civil rights attorney and a teacher in the small fishing and farming community of Conway, South Carolina, Nikky Finney has been writing for as long as she can remember. Her poems are powerful and warm, like her southern roots, and provide glimpses into the human adventures of birth, death, family, violence, sexuality, and relationship, exploring the soul of human community. Nikky's book, Head Off & Split, won the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry. Nikky was the Provost's Distinguished Service Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a faculty position at the University of South Carolina.