Bourque keeps poetry in hearts of Louisianians

• By GREG LANGLEY
• Books editor
• Published: Apr 20, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Louisiana Poet Laureate Darrell Bourque didn’t always write poetry.

“I didn’t write as a child. It wasn’t until I went to the university and I began to (write),” he said. That was about 40 years ago.

Now Bourque is an acclaimed poet with several titles to his credit and more projects in the fire. As state poet laureate, Bourque travels around to schools and events across Louisiana pushing the power of poetry. He’s aware poetry’s a tough sell.

“The result of that is one of the reasons I wanted to go in to the schools and have that particular initiative. I think that fewer and fewer practice and are able to maintain a poetry form in their publications. And I understand why,” Bourque said. “They know they are not going to make money on those particular publications.”

Poetry isn’t part of what Bourque calls “the ascendancy of popular culture.” That results in many people developing “a regard for the sort treasure troves of writing as a kind of elitism.

“That’s the reason I think that we don’t quote Shakespeare — we think that people who read Shakespeare are an elite class of people.”

Bourque wants to reach young people and let them know that poetry is accessible and often is written in language and accents they will recognize and feel comfortable with. In his case, the poetry in such collections as The Blue Boat is laced with French words common in the south Louisiana vernacular.

“I grew up in a French-speaking family, but, so typical of so many French-speaking families, our parents didn’t speak to us in French. I had a great-grandmother who was a holdout and refused to speak to us in English. So I understand French, but I don’t speak it. I understand it, and with the help of people like Barry Ancelet (at the Center for Louisiana Studies as ULL), I can even write it.”

But it’s not easy.

“For me poetry is work. You work harder in reading a volume of poems than you do reading a novel,” Bourque said. “It’s always been (that way) to me — really accessible poets like Whitman and Wordsworth, poets who really have had an influence on me — I find their work, their poetry, requires a different kind of attention.”

Success for a poet is a different thing, he said.

“I think maybe one of the ways to look at it is the function of poetry in society, the function of a poet in society is simply to be there. Not necessarily to produce a popular and accessible work but just to be there. We don’t need it to be a best-selling thing.”

Bourque is doing a lot more than being there. He is out promoting poetry, especially this month — April is National Poetry Month. Bourque is giving readings and signing copies of his works at locations around the state.