Las Cruces-based poet Connie Voisine has been a professor of poetry at New Mexico State University since 2001.She has published several books of poetry and earned honors such as a Guggenheim Fellowship. Last month she was among seven recipients of the 2025 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, which recognized her poetry, teaching, and role in elevating the literary arts across New Mexico. Scott Brocato recently spoke with her about the honor.
Scott Brocato:
Connie, you're no stranger to honors for your work. They include Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, an award from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in 2001 for “Cathedral of the North,” your poetry collection. What is special to you about the recent Governor's Arts Award?
Connie Voisine:
You know, I realized at some point that I've lived in Las Cruces, in New Mexico,longer than I've lived anywhere. And that reality keeps informing me because I thought of myself as someone who is loving, living and working in New Mexico, and I really, really identify as a New Mexican. I think this award pushed me into that.
Scott Brocato:
Pushed you how?
Connie Voisine:
Well, it just made me understand that I am a part of this place, right? And even though I'm very aware of all the things I've been given by this community, it's nice to have someone say, yes, you are honored as a member of that community. And that's just...I don't know, it was a wonderful surprise.
And, you know, when you're a writer, especially of poetry, you really do train yourself to think that...you know, “I love writing. I love sharing my work with others, and that's why I'm doing this.” And the rest of it, like awards and prizes, that doesn't matter. That's just icing on the cake. But still, when you win one, it's very nice.
Scott Brocato:
And (you’re) the only writer among the seven (Governor’s Award) honorees.
Connie Voisine:
Yeah, I know. The person who started the award was the governor's wife in the 70s, a governor's wife. I don't remember which one and what her name is. And she was into the visual arts. So I think it has been historically, primarily honoring the visual arts. But you know, this year there was a dance company who's doing fantastic work in Albuquerque. There are musicians and a wide variety of artists too, like sculptors. So it was a really wonderful experience to meet these other artists.
Scott Brocato:
Well, when did you begin writing poetry, and what inspired you to do so?
Connie Voisine:
I don't know. I think as with many writers, I just loved to read. I was a great reader. I mean, I loved to read and I read obsessively.
Scott Brocato:
Your local library was like your second home, right?
Connie Voisine:
Exactly. And then through the CETA program, which was a job training program, my mother started working. Her training and salary is funded by the CETA program. I think Nixon started that. And so she was working at the library. So we just walk down there, hang out after school, wait for her to get off to go home. And it was just a happy place for me, a library. And still, when I travel, I will go to a local library to find some quiet space and write and decide what I'll read next.
Scott Brocato:
You're originally from Maine. What was the path that eventually landed you here at New Mexico State University in 2001?
Connie Voisine:
I got into Yale University, which was quite a shocker, being a first-generation college student. And I very much, I probably identify more as a first-generation college student than I do as a Yale grad. (Laughs)
And then after that, I lived in New York for a while, and I just had a really rich education through...you know, just the city wasn't quite so expensive in those days. And I had a lot of friends involved in different arts, and I just got to learn a lot about visual art, dance, music and writing when I was there. And it was just a wonderful place to be in my 20s. But at a certain point, it started getting very expensive and more and more expensive. And I decided to commit to poetry in a way that would be...I don't know, I just decided I had to do it. So I applied to graduate school and came west. And ever since then, I've been trying to get back, you know? And then when the job opened up at New Mexico State, I thought, this is perfect.
Scott Brocato:
Talk about your approach to teaching poetry here.
Connie Voisine:
You know, I really think that anyone can write a poem. And at some point, there are people...you know, everyone thinks that they can tell stories, and that they can write, and that they can be artists. And somewhere along the way, they decide they can't do that. And I'm very interested in getting people to see how having that kind of relationship to recording your experience is a very important thing and it's a valuable thing.
Scott Brocato:
Along those lines, in a recent interview, you said “I don't believe that only certain people can write poems. I wonder what could happen when more Americans bring themselves to poetry.” Why do you feel more Americans don't bring themselves to poetry? Is there an intimidation factor?
Connie Voisine:
I don't know, I don't know. And I think it's about education at some level, right? And because I had a writing group of all these women writers who are over 80, and poetry was a very big part of their early education. And I can't think that it was--I know it wasn't a big part of my education. I'm a public school graduate, and I think that's part of it: that it's sort of a cycle where...I don't want to diss my high school English teacher. I had one that taught Shakespeare and she was very involved in poetry. And then the next one is sort of like, “I don't quite get poetry, but you can read that section in our textbook.” So I feel like people have, if they're lucky, they'll find someone who can sort of introduce them to poems in a way that seems exciting and available.
And I just want to point out that whenever there's a national disaster or trouble in this country, I look on social media and people are passing around poems to each other. And I do know that they find some comfort in them as sort of a secular prayer, or as a focusing on and feeling and experience that helps us steady ourselves.
Scott Brocato:
Do you have a process for writing poetry? Like, do you have to have the right surroundings? Do you have a set schedule? Does it just come to you?
Connie Voisine:
Well, no, I have this day job. (Laughs) And you're a musician, right?
Scott Brocato:
Yeah, part-time.
Connie Voisine:
Yeah, and fitting it in is sort of the trick, really, right? How do you think about it? How do you prioritize it or make it happen at least enough to sustain you, right? And I've had big spells where it just wasn't possible. Like having a child, for instance, kind of slows you down in that department. And reintroducing always feels, myself to my poems, it always feels kind of awkward. But, you know, you get back into it.
Scott Brocato:
Can you read us a sample of your poetry?
Connie Voisine:
Yeah! It's a short poem. It's set in the Walmart on Valley (Drive in Las Cruces). What happened was I walked into that Walmart, and a student of mine was standing very quietly. If you know, like the garden center is sort of a little more open, it looks kind of like a...I don't know, like a greenhouse almost, right? It's not quite inside the building. And so she was just standing there and kind of frozen. And I was like, “What are you doing?” And she said, “Look up there.” And it was... a hawk was on the rafters in the garden section.
And coincidentally, at the same time, I was learning from Laurie Churchill, a local person who's a classics scholar, and I was trying to learn Latin, because it's just that root language. I like Romance languages. Latin's at the root of a lot of them, right? So of all of them. So I was thinking about Catullus, who actually does write about birds in his poems, and thinking about how cultures rise and fall across history. And sometimes standing in a superstore, I do think about the fall of empire. (Laughs)
So this was all sort of in that same moment. Like one thing reminds you of the next thing reminds you of the next thing; and then you write those down and then you kind of mold them into something that will work along the lines of what people want from poems, or what historically has made poems what they are.
And so this is called “The Afterlife of Empire,” and the title bleeds into what is actually the first line of the poem. So here I go:
The Afterlife of Empire
is simple: not at all the life you had before.
You study Latin, Catullus poems daily, one in which
he calls his penis sparrow (or sparrow penis),
a finger held to the tiny beak.
And where is afterlife? In these vocatives? The wild
declensions refuse to stay inside your wobbly brain,
like birds you thought would never peck you
or anyone else; they scatter like the friends
you count on all ten, wounded fingers.
What about that hawk, red-tailed, you observed
perching high in the Walmart Garden Center—
up in the scaffolded ceiling above the compost?
What plumage, what hungry curve of beak!
There, amongst the pinwheels, plastic watering cans,
detritus of manufacturing plants in China
where billions of people carry out the pact to rape
the earth for your comforts, the hawk is more,
predatory, for what he wants might scurry
from behind the fireworks display, over spades
and past your cart full of organics, or he might
seek you if you were smaller. And you are.
Scott Brocato:
That's called “The Afterlife of Empire.” That was first published in The New Yorker?
Connie Voisine:
That is true, yep.
Scott Brocato:
And is it part of one of your book collections of your poems?
Connie Voisine:
Yeah, I've got a book coming out in 2027. It always takes very long to get a book out, but there it is. It'll be out then.
Scott Brocato:
Final question. You're married to a writer, Rus Bradburd, author of (the novel) “Big Time” and others. Talk about that dynamic, two writers married to each other. Are there pros, are there cons, competition?
Connie Voisine:
Well, you know, I think it's something pretty great, because you never get told you're doing nothing when you're just sitting there looking out the window, right? (Laughs)
You can talk about books whenever you need to. Like it's on tap, conversations about books, right? Going to readings is something you both enjoy, and the sort of culture around writers and how they get together and what they want to do is pretty similar. And I think it helps too that we're in different genres. Rus writes mostly fiction and nonfiction, and I write poetry. So not being in the same genre means we're not sort of competing for the same publishers or the same awards or any of that stuff. So it keeps it all pretty chill. We're not worried. (Laughs)
Scott Brocato:
Connie Voisine, congratulations on the 2025 Governor's Award. Thank you for talking with KRWG Public Media.
Connie Voisine:
Thanks for having me.
