Famous
(Book - Regular Print)

A series of poems about ordinary women piecing together their own significance.

Poet Kathleen Flenniken studied and worked as a civil engineer and didn't discover poetry until her early 30s. Her collection Plume, published by University of Washington Press in 2012, is a meditation on the Hanford Nuclear Site and her home town of Richland, Washington. The collection won the Washington State Book Award and was a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Pacific Northwest Book Awards. Her first book, Famous, which was published by University of Nebraska Press in 2006, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association. Her other honors include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Artist Trust. She was the 2012 - 2014 Washington State Poet Laureate. And on October 4, 2018 Flenniken was the 5th featured author in Saint Martin University's Les Bailey Writers Series. She currently serves on the board of Jack Straw, an audio arts studio and cultural center. Flenniken holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Pacific Lutheran University, as well as bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering.