William Kloefkorn

William Charles "Bill" Kloefkorn, was a Nebraska poet and educator based in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was the author of twelve collections of poetry, two short story collections, a collection of children's Christmas stories, and four memoirs. Kloefkorn was professor of English from 1962 to his retirement in 1997 to professor emeritus of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University.
Kloefkorn was born in Attica, Kansas and obtained bachelor's and master's degrees from Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, and did additional graduate work at the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Prior to teaching at Nebraska Wesleyan, Kloefkorn taught at Wichita State University and at Ellinwood High School in Ellinwood, Kansas.
In 1982, Kloefkorn was appointed State Poet of Nebraska, a position roughly equivalent to Poet Laureate. Kloefkorn died in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was succeeded as State Poet by his student Twyla Hansen in 2013.
In addition to his literary honors, Kloefkorn boasted that he won first place in the 1978 Nebraska Hog-Calling Championship.
An elementary school in Lincoln is named after Kloefkorn.

Selected publications

;Poetry

Alvin Turner As Farmer - reissued by Logan House Press in 2005
Uncertain the Final Run to Winter
Loony
Not Such a Bad Place to Be
Platte Valley Homestead
Collecting for the Wichita Beacon ;
Drinking the Tin Cup Dry
Where the Visible Sun Is
Going Out, Coming Back
Welcome to Carlos
Loup River Psalter
Sergeant Patrick Gass, Chief Carpenter Verse written by Kloefkorn in the voice of Sergeant Patrick Gass, chief carpenter on the Lewis and Clark Expedition based on research into the expedition and the journal kept by Sergeant Gass himself
I Screwed A Pig and It Liked It
Out of Attica
Swallowing the Soap: New and Selected Poems

;Memoirs

;Fiction