Beverly Matherne (born March 15, 1946) is a Cajun poet, translator and editor. She has written five bilingual books of poetry and two bilingual chapbooks of poetry. She is Professor Emerita of English at Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, MI. She served as poet laureate of MichiganâÂÂs Upper Peninsula from March 2023 to July 2025.
She grew up in Grand Point, in St. James Parish, Louisiana. She graduated from Lutcher High School in 1964. Matherne received a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1969 and a Master of Arts in English in 1971 from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now named the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). She received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Drama from Saint Louis University in 1974.
Matherne held a full-time teaching appointment in the Department of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, serving as a one-year replacement assistant professor from September 1974 to May 1975. She then joined the Department of English at Kansas State University. She taught full time and was granted tenure in 1980.
Matherne pursued graduate studies in the Master of Arts program in French at the University of California, Berkeley, from January 1981 to May 1984. During this period and continuing through 1989, Matherne worked full time in the computer industry.
She joined the Department of English at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan in 1991, where she taught full time, directed the Master of Fine Arts program, and served as poetry editor of Passages North, the universityâÂÂs literary magazine.
She was awarded tenure in 1995 and became full professor in 1997 and remained at NMU until her retirement in May 2015.
Her work has also appeared in a range of French- and English-language periodicals, including Ancrages: Revue de création littéraire, Feux Follets: Revue de création littéraire, ÃÂloizes: La Louisiane⦠(numéro spécial), Feux Chalins: création littéraire des Maritimes (numéro spécial: Acadie et Louisiane), Langage et Créativité, Port Acadie: Revue interdisciplinaires en études acadiennes, and Résonances. English-language periodicals include Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, Interdisciplinary Humanities (special jazz and blues issue), Metamorphoses: The Journal of the Five College Seminar in Literary Translation, Paterson Literary Review, Platte Valley Review, Runes: A Review of Poetry, and Kansas Quarterly.
She was awarded the Prix CODOFIL en poésie in three consecutive years 1996, 1997, and 1998 and received the Hackney Literary Award for Poetry in 1994. She has received four Pushcart Prize nominations and has done over 400 readings across Michigan, the United States, Canada, France, and elsewhere abroad.