LEH Sends Three Nominations to Governor for Poet Laureate

Louisiana is one step closer to naming its next poet laureate. Through a process overseen by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state’s poet laureate selection committee has sent the names of three finalists to Governor John Bel Edwards, who by statute, will make the final selection subject to confirmation by the Louisiana senate. The finalists include:

Dr. Niyi Osundare is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of New Orleans. He is the author of 18 books of poetry, two books of selected poems, (with individual poems in over 70 journals and magazines across the world), four plays, a book of leadership essays, and numerous monographs and articles on literature, language, culture, and society.

Dr. Jack Bedell, Professor of the Humanities at Southeastern Louisiana University, is the author of seven books, including Call and Response (with Darrell Bourque, 2010), Come Rain, Come Shine (2006), What Passes for Love (2001), and Bone-Hollow, True: New & Selected Poems (2013).

Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy is Coordinator and Professor of English at Dillard University. Dr. Saloy’s book, Red Beans and Ricely Yours: Poems, won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Prize (2006) and the T. S. Eliot Prize in poetry (2005), and was finalist for the Morgan Poetry Prize from Story-Line Press.

For more about the poet laureate process, click https://leh.org/la-poet-laureate/