Helen Degen Cohen (1934-2015) is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, First Prize in British Stand Magazine’s international fiction competition, three Illinois Art Council awards, and IAC Fellowship, an Indiana Writers Conference Award, and Fellowships to the major art colonies. She co-founded and co-edited Rhino and coordinated its adjunct, The Poetry Forum. She taught as an IAC artist-in-education through the Illinois Arts Council and as an instructor for Roosevelt University.
Degen Cohen published two collections in 2009: Habry and On a Good Day One Discovers Another Poet. She served on the editorial board of the new anthology from SUNY, Where We Find Ourselves, which includes “Mirka & I,” another excerpt from her autobiographical novel The Edge of the Field. At the time of her death, Degen Cohen left behind an incomplete manuscript of poems about film.
