2000-2004

Ellen Kort was named Wisconsin's first Poet Laureate by then-Govermor Tommy Thompson in 2000.For decades she has been committed to poetry in Wisconsin, teaching, writing, giving public readings and instructing in workshops and retreats. She is a resident of Appleton, in Outagamie County. She is the author of eleven books, and eight books of poetry, and has been featured in a wide variety of journals and anthologies.

Ellen has received the Pablo Neruda Literary Prize for Poetry (Tulsa, OK), the Mel Ellis/Dion Henderson Outdoor Writing Award, the 1998 Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Poetry Award, the 2001 Dr. Hanns Kretzschmar "Excellence in the Arts" award, the Wisconsin Felllowship of Poets 2003 Muse Poetry Prize, the 2003 Council for Wisconsin Writers' Christopher Latham Sholes Award for Outstanding Encouragement of Wisconsin Writers, a 2004 Fellow of Letters by the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, and many other awards.

Her poems have been architecturally incorporated into Milwaukee's Midwest Express Center, the Green Bay Botanical Garden, the Fox River Mall, the Appleton Medical Center Heart Institute, the Winona Health Hospital in Winona, MN, and featured in several libraries throughout Wisconsin. Her poetry has also been included in the 1997 "Remembering" exhibit in Wichita Falls, TX, and the 1998 exhibit, "Women and their Work," in Austin, TX. Her work has been performed b the New York City Dance thearter, recorded and nominated for a 1997 Grammy award, and included in the Hospice Poetry Recording Project of Seattle. Ellen has appeared on Wisconsin and National Public Radio and has traveled widely as a poet, speaker, and poetry workshop facilitator throughout the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, the Bahamas, and Japan.

She teeaches poetry at the Renaissance Fine Arts Charter School in Appleton, has taught at UW—Green Bay, the Oklahoma Art Institute, the UW's Rhinelander School of the Arts, Green Lake Summer Writing Program, The Clearing, UW—Stevens Point's "Arts World," and theUW—Oshkosh Writing Project for Teachers. Because Ellen believes poetry is a "healing art," she facilitates poetry workshops at medical conventions for physicians and psychologists.