📅 September 26, 2026 || 2 PM - 4 PM
📍 Hammond Regional Arts Center || 217 E. Thomas St. in Downtown Hammond
At Celebrating the Written Word 2026, Louisiana Poet Laureate Gina Ferrara will share selections of her poetry and reflect on her creative journey as a poet.
This event is free and open to the public.
One Memory I Had of Summer
The fence obscured by honeysuckle
with numberless trumpets heralding
droplets, miniscule beads of nectar.
A jet scrapes the sky, scratches reality
the white line straight without intersection
leaves only part of a cross traveling one way
in an uninterrupted soliloquy further south.
Every day lily opens without secret,
the mottled and the solid
mouth silent arias, unabashed and blooming.
The bird house replicates our own
wood painted in moon beam, evergreen shutters,
and silver dollar sized apertures constricted in refusals,
too narrow for even the smallest sparrow to enter.
About Gina Ferrara
Gina Ferrara is the current Louisiana Poet Laureate and an associate professor of English at Delgado Community College in New Orleans. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Amiss (Dos Madres Press, 2023). Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals such as Callaloo, The Poetry Ireland Review, Tar River, and The Southern Review, and was nominated for both a Best of the Net and Pushcart Award in 2024. Since 2007, Ferrara has curated and hosted The Poetry Buffet, a monthly New Orleans reading series featuring poets from across Louisiana. She holds a BA in English and an MFA from the University of New Orleans.