“Michael Dennis Browne (M.A., The University of Iowa) is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for thirty-nine years. His most recent publications include Give Her the River, a picture book with paintings by Wendell Minor (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2004); Things I Can’t Tell You, Poetry (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2005); and What the Poem Wants: Essays on Poetry (Carnegie Mellon, 2008). Browne’s poems have been published in many magazines and anthologies, and his awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. Two of his collections have won the Minnesota Book Award for poetry. As a librettist, he has written many texts for music, working principally with composer Stephen Paulus. Their post-Holocaust oratorio, To Be Certain of the Dawn, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in music by the Minnesota Orchestra and issued as a CD in 2008. Some of the best-known short choral works by Paulus and Browne include ‘The Road Home,’ ‘Pilgrims’ Hymn,’ ‘Hymn for America,’ and ‘Hymn of the Eternal Flame.'”

–Iowa Summer Writing Festival website