About the Honorary Chair, Dr. Edmund Skellings

Dr. Edmund Skellings was appointed a University Professor of Humanities at the Florida Institute of Technology in 2008.  He divides his time writing poetry and promoting programs in the humanities. 

Born in Ludlow, Massachusetts, in 1932, Skellings graduated with English honors from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  He received his doctorate in English from the University of Iowa, where he taught prosody and metrics in the famous Iowa Writer’s Workshop.  He published the first record-book, Duels and Duets, whose covers contained vinyl recording of the poet’s voice.  In 1963, he founded the Alaska Writer’s Workshop at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

In 1967, Skellings joined the faculty of Florida Atlantic University where he taught Understanding Poetry and Shakespeare.  In 1973, Skellings became Director of the International Institute of Creative Communication at Florida International University which brought poetry programs to over 100,000 children.

After a competition of 400 Florida poets, in 1980, Governor Robert Graham appointed Skellings the Poet Laureate of the State of Florida, a lifetime honor.  Author of 7 books of poems, his most recent is Collected Poems 1958-1989, published by the University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

In 1990, Skellings became the founding Director of the Florida Center for Electronic Communication where he developed the first Master of Fine Arts degree in Computer Arts at a public university in Southeast United States.  He is well known for his award winning animated computer poems, and in 2002, won the Videographer Crystal Award of Excellence for his video disc Word Songs, the first collection of 3D animated poetry in the world.

To hear and view Skellings’ poetry and word songs, visit his website at: www.edmundskellings.com.