Dr. Darrel Bourque, former Louisiana poet laureate, will speak during the 小蝌蚪APP小蝌蚪APP檚 Fall 2014 Commencement.
A 小蝌蚪APP 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 Louisiana Writer Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to Louisiana小蝌蚪APP檚 literary and intellectual life. He is the 15th recipient of the annual award presented by the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana.
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: 小蝌蚪APP淧lainsongs小蝌蚪APP; 小蝌蚪APP淭he Doors Between Us小蝌蚪APP; 小蝌蚪APP淏urnt Water Suite小蝌蚪APP; 小蝌蚪APP淭he Blue Boat小蝌蚪APP; 小蝌蚪APP淚n Ordinary Light: New and Selected Poems小蝌蚪APP; 小蝌蚪APP淐all and Response: Conversations in Verse,小蝌蚪APP a collaboration with Louisiana poet Jack B. Bedell; 小蝌蚪APP淗olding the Notes小蝌蚪APP; 小蝌蚪APP淢egan's Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie小蝌蚪APP; and 小蝌蚪APP渋f you abandon me, comment je vas faire: An Am茅d茅 Ardoin Songbook.小蝌蚪APP
小蝌蚪APP淢egan小蝌蚪APP檚 Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie小蝌蚪APP 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 小蝌蚪APP淔oreword Review小蝌蚪APP 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 Louisiana, a program designed to bring the diverse voices of Louisiana 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小蝌蚪APP檚 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 Louisiana artists participating in Degrees of Separation, a two-year Louisiane-Bretagne exchange that continues through October 2016. It involves Louisiana 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 Am茅d茅 Ardoin Songbook," Bourque initiated an effort to create a public commemorative for Ardoin, a Creole musician who died at Central Louisiana 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