Poet Nikky Finney Saying Goodbye To The Bluegrass

LEXINGTON, Ky. -The departure of the award-winning poet and professor at the University of Kentucky is being called a tremendous loss for commonwealth.

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Credit nathanielturner.com

National Book Award winner Nikky Finney has been a fixture in Lexington for more than 20 years. Now the writer says she’s moving back to her native South Carolina to spend more time with her parents. Finney has accepted an appointment in the University of South Carolina’s English language and literature department and the African-American studies program and will teach creative writing at USC.

Finney appeared on WUKY's UK Perspectives in 2011 to discuss her book Head Off & Split. Discussing her work with the Affrilachian Poets, a writers group she helped form, Finney said, "The best thing is visibility. The best thing is to model an artist's life so that others can see, 'Oh, I can do that.'"

UK President Eli Capilouto told the Lexington Herald-Leader  he’s saddened by the announcement but understands the writer’s longing to return home.

Finney, who arrived in Lexington in 1990, has written that Kentucky will forever be the place where she became a writer.