Juan Felipe Herrera New US Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera, the new
US Poet Laureate (A Plus Journalism)

Juan Felipe Herrera, who has served these last two years as the Poet Laureate of California, was named the new Poet Laureate of the United States (Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress) early this morning by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. He becomes the first Latino and the first Chicano to serve in this post. A retired professor, longtime advocate for bringing poetry in a wide array of spaces and, since 2011, a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Herrera is the author of over two dozen books, including collections of poetry and works for children. In 2011, for National Poetry Month, and again in 2012, when he was named California Poet Laureate, I wrote short blog entries and featured poems by Herrera. In 2011, I said

One of the things I particularly like about his work is its versatility, of subject matter, voice, and form. While he draws frequently from his life, he will also set aloft a conceit like the one below, flavored by and steeped in his experiences yet resonant far beyond his own biography.

Like May Swenson, he can do a lot of different things well, and has been known to move words in very interesting ways around the page. Herrera finally received some major props in 2008 when he won the National Book Critics Circle Award, becoming the first Latino poet to receive it.

In the latter post, I wrote

his work covers a broad range of styles and forms, sometimes melding Spanish and English, though it is often colloquial in tone, frequently tinged with humor, and always attentive to the resonances of everyday life and people, sometimes effortlessly bringing profound cultural and spiritual dimensions to the fore. It is in this regard quintessentially American, and nourishes a rich tradition of such poetry going back centuries.

I'm excited to see the breadth and richness of American poetries reflected in this new choice and look forward to seeing him serve as Poet Laureate. I envision him attracting a wide array of people to the worlds of poetry, and hope that this post brings far more readers to his playful, profound work.

Congratulations to Juan Felipe Herrera!

>>>

Here is another poem by Juan Felipe Herrera, shared from the Academy of American Poets' website, from Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. It's brief, and manages to be both comical and serious, with touches of surrealism and the metaphysical, resonating like that sixth guitar string.

Five Directions to My House

1. Go back to the grain yellow hills where the broken speak of elegance
2. Walk up to the canvas door, the short bed stretched against the clouds
3. Beneath the earth, an ant writes with the grace of a governor
4. Blow, blow Red Tail Hawk, your hidden sleeve—your desert secrets
5. You are there, almost, without a name, without a body, go now
6. I said five, said five like a guitar says six.

From Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008.

California's New Poet Laureate + Poem: Juan Felipe Herrera

Congratulations to California's new Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera (1948-). This week Democratic Governor Jerry Brown appointed the long-time social and arts activist and professor at the University of California, Riverside, where he holds the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in the Department of Creative Writing. Herrera has published 28 books of poetry, fiction, and children's literature, and received the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for his collection Half the World in Light, just one of the many honors he has earned over the years. Herrera is the first  Latino poet ever to hold this post, and he described it this way to the undergraduate newspaper UCR Today: "This award is for all the young writers who want to put kindness inside every word throughout the state, because kindness is the heart of creativity."

Rivera is the son of campesinos who worked San Joaquín and Salinas Valleys in California, and this upbringing provided the material for much of his early poetry, which he began publishing after attending UCLA, Stanford, and the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop. As I noted when I wrote about and featured a poem of his during National Poetry Month last year, his work covers a broad range of styles and forms, sometimes melding Spanish and English, though it is often colloquial in tone, frequently tinged with humor, and always attentive to the resonances of everyday life and people, sometimes effortlessly bringing profound cultural and spiritual dimensions to the fore. It is in this regard quintessentially American, and nourishes a rich tradition of such poetry going back centuries.

The poem I chose last year, which fascinates me, "El ángel de la guarda" (The Guardian Angel), uses one of the oldest rhetorical devices, anaphora, or repetition of initial words or phrases, to build towards a powerful conclusion. In honor of his new post, I think it's about time to feature another poem by him, which I have borrowed directly from the blog of the very fine poet Barbara Jane Reyes. (Do read her take on Herrera too.) This poem is about poems and poetry themselves, though it is, like all his work, about life.

Congratulations to Juan Felipe Herrera, and enjoy!

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT A POEM BRINGS

for Charles Fishman

Before you go further,
let me tell you what a poem brings,
first, you must know the secret, there is no poem
to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries,
yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this,
instead of going day by day against the razors, well,
the judgments, all the tick-tock bronze, a leather jacket
sizing you up, the fashion mall, for example, from
the outside you think you are being entertained,
when you enter, things change, you get caught by surprise,
your mouth goes sour, you get thirsty, your legs grow cold
standing still in the middle of a storm, a poem, of course,
is always open for business too, except, as you can see,
it isn’t exactly business that pulls your spirit into
the alarming waters, there you can bathe, you can play,
you can even join in on the gossip—the mist, that is,
the mist becomes central to your existence.

Copyright © 2008 Juan Felipe Herrera, from Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. All rights reserved.

Poem: Juan Felipe Herrera

Okay, now how many of you have heard of or read the work of this incredibly talented poet, Juan Felipe Herrera? Show of hands. Of course I can't see them, and I know some are waving. But I do wonder, because despite how outstanding and prolific a poet he is, I rarely see his name mentioned in the same breath as many others of his generation. Born in 1948 in California, Herrera has published about 25 books, which include works for children, a novel in verse, and bilingual texts. One of the things I particularly like about his work is its versatility, of subject matter, voice, and form. While he draws frequently from his life, he will also set aloft a conceit like the one below, flavored by and steeped in his experiences yet resonant far beyond his own biography.

Like May Swenson, he can do a lot of different things well, and has been known to move words in very interesting ways around the page.  Herrera finally received some major props in 2008 when he won the National Book Critics Circle Award, becoming the first Latino poet to receive it. Herrera attended UCLA, Stanford, and Iowa, and has taught at California State University, Fresno and University of California, Riverside, where he directs the Art and Barbara Culver Center for the Arts. He has also taught poetry in California prisons, and works with local schools and community colleges in and around Riverside.

EL ÁNGEL DE LA GUARDA


(The Guardian Angel)


I should have visited more often.
I should have taken the sour pudding they offered.
I should have danced that lousy beggar shuffle.
I should have painted their rooms in a brighter color.
I should have put a window in there, for the daughters.
I should have provided a decent mountain for a view.
I should have nudged them a little closer to the sky.
I should have guessed they would never come out to wave.
I should have cleaned up that mole, the abyss, in the back.
I should have touched them, that's it, it comes to me now.
I should have touched them.

(From Woodland Pattern Bookstore's site) From Lotería Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives, by Juan Felipe Herrera, Linocuts by Artemil Rodrígues Copyright © City Lights, 1999. All rights reserved.