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Dr. Darrel Bourque, former 91�Թ� poet laureate, will speak during the 91�Թ�’s Fall 2014 Commencement.

A University professor emeritus of English, he will address graduates and guests at the General Assembly at 11 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, in the Cajundome.

In November, Bourque received the 2014 91�Թ� Writer Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to 91�Թ�’s literary and intellectual life. He is the 15th recipient of the annual award presented by the 91�Թ� Center for the Book in the State Library of 91�Թ�.

Past recipients of the honor include novelists Ernest J. Gaines, James Lee Burke, and Elmore Leonard; historian Carl Brasseaux; scholar Lewis P. Simpson; and poets William Jay Smith and Yusef Komunyakaa.

Bourque has published nine collections of poems: “Plainsongs”; “The Doors Between Us”; “Burnt Water Suite”; “The Blue Boat”; “In Ordinary Light: New and Selected Poems”; “Call and Response: Conversations in Verse,” a collaboration with 91�Թ� poet Jack B. Bedell; “Holding the Notes”; “Megan's Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie”; and “if you abandon me, comment je vas faire: An Amédé Ardoin Songbook.”

“Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie” was the 2014 winner of the Best Poetry Book Award given by Independent Book Publishing Professional Group and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. It also was a finalist in the “Foreword Review” annual poetry competition.
 
In 2007, Bourque was named poet laureate by then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco; he was reappointed for 2009-2011 by Gov. Bobby Jindal. His mission as poet laureate was to take poetry into community centers, community libraries, and pre-college classrooms through workshops, lectures, and poetry readings.

During his tenure as poet laureate, Bourque also premiered the "Just Listen to Yourself" program at the State Library of 91�Թ�, a program designed to bring the diverse voices of 91�Թ� poetry to state workers in the Capitol complex during their lunch hours and to the public. The program takes place in April, which is National Poetry Month. 

At UL Lafayette, the popular professor was director of the Deep South Writers Conference, director of the Freshman English Program, coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program, director of the creative writing program, and head of the Department of English.

Bourque also received the UL Lafayette Foundation’s Distinguished Professor Award and its Outstanding Teacher Award. He held the first Friends of the Humanities/Board of Regents Honor Professorship, a position he kept until his retirement in 2003.

His current projects include work with Festival of Words-Grand Coteau, a literary festival that brings local and internationally known writers to a largely under-served and under-privileged rural community. He is a member of the board of the Ernest J. Gaines Center at UL Lafayette, where he directs the Young Writers Apprenticeship Program for high school students.

Bourque is also a founding member of Narrative4, an international story exchange program based in Chicago and New York, and serves on the advisory board of NuNu's Arts and Culture Collective, a multidisciplinary creative place-making initiative based in Arnaudville, La.

He is one of the 91�Թ� artists participating in Degrees of Separation, a two-year Louisiane-Bretagne exchange that continues through October 2016. It involves 91�Թ� literary and visual artists interacting and collaborating with literary and visual artists from Bretagne in France. 

With the publication of "if you abandon me, comment je vas faire: An Amédé Ardoin Songbook," Bourque initiated an effort to create a public commemorative for Ardoin, a Creole musician who died at Central 91�Թ� Hospital in Pineville in 1942 and was buried in an unmarked graveyard. The aim of the project, co-directed by Patricia Cravins, is to honor the place that Ardoin holds in both Creole and Cajun cultures.

Bourque lives and works in rural St. Landry Parish.

Photo by Darrell John Jarman Slaughter