McNeese Hosts Poet Darrell Bourque

McNeese State University will host former Louisiana poet laureate, Darrell Bourque, for the Joe and Lydia Cash Lecture on Friday, Sept. 12, in Room 104 of Hardtner Hall at 6:30 p.m. This lecture is hosted by the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in creative writing and is free to the public. 

Founded in 1981, McNeese’s MFA degree program is the oldest MFA program in Louisiana and one of the oldest in the Southeast. 

Bourque is a professor emeritus in English and interdisciplinary humanities at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is a resident of St. Landry Parish and served as the state’s poet laureate for two terms from 2007 to 2011. 

Bourque is the recipient of the 2014 Louisiana Book Festival Writer Award and the 2019 Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Humanist of the Year Award, among other honors.  

The poet was also named Artist of the Year by the Acadiana Center for the Arts in 2001 and served as both president of the National Association for Humanities Education and editor-in-chief of its journal Interdisciplinary Humanities. 

Some of his works include Until We Talk (Etruscan Press, 2024), Migraré (University of Louisiana Press, 2019) and From the Other Side: Henriette Delille (Self-published, 2019). 

Persons requesting accommodations in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) should contact the Office of Campus Compliance and Civility at least 72 hours before the event. Additional information is available from the Office of Campus Compliance and Civility, located in the Burton Business Center, Suite 407, by phone at 337-475-5428, by fax at 337-475-5603, or by email at compliance@mcneese.edu.