DESCRIPTION:
Twyla Hansen :
Gov. Dave Heineman named Twyla M. Hansen as Nebraska State Poet for the term Dec. 1, 2013 to Nov. 30, 2018.

Her newest book, DIRT SONGS: A PLAINS DUET (with Linda M. Hasselstrom), won the 2012 Nebraska Book Award and was Finalist for the 2012 High Plains Book Award and 2012 WILLA Literary Award. She has five previous books of poetry, including POTATO SOUP, winner of the 2004 Nebraska Book Award. Her writing has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Platte Valley Review, Organization & Environment, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West, and A Contemporary Reader for Creative Writing.

Twyla has earned a B.S. and a M.Ag. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was raised in northeast Nebraska on land her grandparents farmed in the late 1800s as immigrants from Denmark. She lives and works in Lincoln, where her wooded acre is maintained as an urban wildlife habitat and was recognized in 1994 by the Mayor’s Landscape Conservation Award.