Connie Voisine is one of the most accomplished poets in southern New Mexico. She earned a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship and the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Voisine also co-founded a non-profit organization to help disabled writers. She has published five books of poetry with another on the way in 2027.
On top of all that, Voisine, a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program, has been teaching students poetry and writing at New Mexico State University for 25 years. She will retire at the end of June.
“Dr. Connie Voisine has been both an exceptional artist and a meaningful changemaker within our institution,” said Amy Lanasa, Creative Media Institute department head. “Her accomplishments as a Guggenheim-winning poet brought distinction to our program, while her work helping move the creative writing program into CMI reshaped the possibilities for interdisciplinary creative education at NMSU. I'm so proud to have gotten to work with Connie.”
“I really do believe that anyone's life is made better by writing poems. It's a gateway to understanding the world, for self-expression, to feel part of a community,” Voisine said. “I just taught my last class, and the students were reflecting upon the moment when they got the poetry bug and they were saying, ‘I can't get enough of it.’ Poetry has given me a great life, why wouldn't it give anyone a great life.”
Voisine grew up in Maine on the border with Canada, speaking French and English in a rural area of subsistence farmers. Her father was a lumberjack and her mother worked with a federal jobs program located at the public library. From humble beginnings, Voisine earned a place at Yale University, perhaps due in part to her regular exposure to reading.
“We just walked down to the library to hang out after school and waited for her to get off work to go home,” Voisine said. “It was a happy place for me, the library. Now when I travel, I still go to a local library to find some quiet space to write and decide what I'll read next.”
A first-generation college student, Voisine earned a Bachelor of Arts in American studies from Yale University. In her 20s, she lived in New York City, studying writing at the New School and the Writers Studio, before earning her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah.
“I was working in Connecticut at a private school, which was closer to my family, but I always wanted to come back to the West,” Voisine said. “I applied for four jobs in the West and got this one. There are not that many jobs for poets in academia and I wanted to work at a state school.”
Voisine landed at NMSU in 2001 before 9/11. She pointed out that students come to NMSU for CMI from Juarez, El Paso and all over the state, because it's the only such program in the region. Over the years, Voisine has observed that students who come to poetry are individualistic, despite a culture with a lot of pressure to conform.
“The thing about poetry is that nobody takes it because they have to. It’s a great gift for a teacher,” Voisine said. “Everyone's there because they really want to be there. Students in my poetry classes want to be there.”
“Some teachers focus mostly on the craft of writing, how a poem is built from sound and language. Connie Voisine has a rare talent – she helps students discover why they love poetry and can’t live without it,” said Allison Layfield, NMSU senior proposal development specialist. “Once you’ve got that figured out, she introduces you to all the writers and poems that will guide you as an artist for the rest of your life.”
Voisine has stayed in touch with many of her students and plans to continue those friendships.
“I really like my students. I consider them colleagues many have gone on to publish books and that they're now teachers themselves,” Voisine said. “Yeah, I will miss my students.”
“Unique shoes, fun eyewear, and creative genius are how I remember Connie,” said Tonya Suther, an adjunct associate professor of composition and literary studies at Austin Community College. “As a graduate student, I came to know her as a professor and advisor, who figuratively held my hand through my MFA and then some. I’ll be forever grateful to her for her academic and professional guidance, and friendship.”
“Connie not only taught me how to understand, read and write poetry, but also how to be a teacher who cares about students’ experiences in the classroom and beyond,” said Carrie Tafoya, a college assistant professor in NMSU’s English department. “She gave my work time and attention and encouraged me to keep writing, but she also cared about who I was outside the classroom. When I was working on my final year in the MFA, my son was also having regular seizures. It was a difficult time, but Connie went out of her way to support and encourage me. I wouldn’t have made it through without her guidance. Now, I work to show my own students the kindness and attention she showed me.”
Las Cruces is also where Voisine met her husband Rus Bradburd, an author of five books who retired from teaching creative writing at NMSU last year. When Voisine retires, the couple plans to stay in Las Cruces but will do quite a bit of traveling.
“I realized at some point that I've lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico, longer than I've lived anywhere,” Voisine said. “I think of myself as someone who is loving, living and working in New Mexico, and I identify as a New Mexican.”
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CUTLINE: Connie Voisine, poetry professor at New Mexico State University, will retire from teaching in June after 25 years at NMSU. (Courtesy photo)
CUTLINE: Connie Voisine, poetry professor at New Mexico State University, is shown here at a poetry reading. (Courtesy photo)
CUTLINE: Connie Voisine (center) with husband Rus Bradburd (left) and daughter Alma. (Courtesy photo)