Claude Wilkinson is a graduate of the universities of Mississippi and Memphis respectively.  Over the years his poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Atlanta Review, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review.  His collection, Reading the Earth, won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. He has been selected for inclusion in Who's Who in the South and Southwest, Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.  In addition to private collections, his work is also in the permanent collections of Cottonlandia Museum.