Juan Felipe Herrera

Poet, Educator, and Writer Class of 2024

Uplifting Chicanx culture and amplifying shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment.

Location

Fresno, California

Age

75 at time of award

Area of Focus

Poetry

About Juan's Work

Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, educator, and writer uplifting Chicanx culture and amplifying shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment through poetry and prose for adults and children. Herrera’s literary output, in both English and Spanish, crosses genres and spans five decades; his work is united by deep empathy and joy for all groups in the act of artistic creation.

Herrera has chronicled the changing social and cultural dynamics of the Mexican-American community, from the activism of the Chicano Movement to the fraught politics of immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border today. In his 1974 publication Rebozos of Love / We have Woven / Sudor de Pueblos / On our Back, which was republished in 2021 as Rebozos of Love: Floricanto 1970–1974, Herrera exalts ideas embedded in the Chicanx nationalist movement while experimenting with linguistic syntax and structure. For example, the poems flow effortlessly between Spanish and English, and Herrera incorporates pre-Columbian history, Indigenous deities, language, and artistic motifs. Herrera addresses present-day concerns in Every Day We Get More Illegal (2020). He pays homage to unseen working-class laborers and the lives of immigrants precariously situated on the edges of society. Herrera also implores readers to resist dehumanizing labels and to show empathy for the vulnerable among us. In Notes on the Assemblage (2015), Herrera laments state violence inflicted upon citizens in the United States and elsewhere. The opening poem, “Ayotzinapa,” is a stream of consciousness, bilingual account of the killings of 43 Indigenous students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College, likely at the hands of the police in Guerrero, Mexico, in 2014. Herrera puts the reader in the position of both witness and victim in “Almost Livin’ Almost Dyin.” The poem, about police killing Black men in the United States, subtly shifts to include the reader in the collective first person “we.” In this way, Herrera imagines a future in which people are in solidarity with one another, no matter their differences.

In addition to poetry, Herrera has written several books for children. He recounts fond memories of his childhood among migrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley in the picture book Calling the Doves / El canto de las palomas (2014). Jabberwalking (2018), an introduction to writing poetry for young readers, showcases Herrera’s delight in linguistic experimentation and lifelong devotion to teaching. A distinctive voice and inspiration for generations of writers, Herrera centers the unprotected while imbuing his work with hope and a sense of possibility.

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Biography

Juan Felipe Herrera received a BA from University of California, Los Angeles (1972), an MA from Stanford University (1980), and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop (1990). Herrera is the author of over 30 books, including Senegal Taxi (2013); Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008); and Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (1998). Herrera is professor emeritus at the University of California, Riverside, and at California State University, Fresno, where he coordinates the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio. He served as California Poet Laureate (2012–2015) and Poet Laureate of the United States (2015–2017). Herrera’s poem “Sunriders” was engraved on a plaque sent on NASA’s unmanned Lucy mission in 2021, and the Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary School, a bilingual school in Fresno, CA, opened in 2022.

“My poetry begins in the early 50s. We lived in a rough-cut trailer my father made. ”

“My mother taught me songs, stories, and poems from her childhood. We played with words every day. While attending UCLA and Stanford on scholarships, I was immersed in Latin American literature, and at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop I discovered the structures of poetry. However, in addition to my mother, the most influential force on my life was my third grade teacher, who introduced me to singing in front of an audience. I performed a solo in our choir for the entire school in barrio Logan Heights, San Diego. Mrs. Sampson to this day tells me ‘You have a beautiful voice.’ It was all about voice—finding my voice and giving my voice to others for the rest of my life. When I read poetry to children, adults, poets, I tell them my story and ‘You have a Beautiful Voice.’ Poetry is a way of offering kindness, compassion, unity, and humanity. I write for the lost, the injured, deported, poor, massacred, abandoned, and ostracized. My mother, teachers, and hard-working father gave me this gift. I write for all.”

—Juan Felipe Herrera

Published on October 1, 2024

Photos of Juan Felipe Herrera

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