Louis Jenkins

Louis Jenkins is one of the contemporary masters of the prose poem. Born in Oklahoma, Jenkins lived near Duluth, Minnesota, for over 30 years. The author of many books, his late poetry collections included Where Your House Is Now: New and Selected Prose Poems (Nodin Press, 2019), In the Sun Out of the Wind (2017), Before You Know It: Prose Poems 1970-2005 (2009), European Shoes (2008), and North of the Cities (2007). His work was regularly featured on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion. His brief, accessible prose poems use humor, wry observation, and hypothesis to tease out the absurdity of everyday situations. In his poems, Jenkins maintained a tight focus on the mundane particularities of ordinary existence, using deliberately flat language to comic and often heartbreaking effect. He died in late 2019.