Juan Felipe Herrera – författare

From U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera comes the powerful journey of Chicano teen Lucky Z. A former skateboarder who's anything but lucky, he finds triumph and power through his voice. Raw, cool, real-this novel in verse is a shout-out to teens to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to raise their voice and find strength in the sheer and simple power of expression. Lucky Z has always lived on the edge-he loved to skateboard, to drag race, to feel alive. But things have taken a turn-he's living with new foster parents and a tragic past. An accident changed everything. And only his voice will set him free. As you feel Lucky breathe in life again, you will want to shout out with him.

From U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, here are stirring poems that read like music. Awarded the Pura Belpre Honor for this book, Herrera writes in both Spanish and English about the joy and laughter and sometimes the confusion of growing up in an upside-down, jumbled-up world-between two cultures, two homes. With a crazy maraca beat, Herrera creates poetry as rich and vibrant as mole de ole and pineapple tamales ...an aroma of papaya ...a clear soup with strong garlic, so you will grow & not disappear. Herrera's words are hot & peppery, good for you. They show us what it means to laugh out loud until it feels like flying.

The highlands of Chiapas are smoldering with death. In the winter of 1997, paramilitary agents ambushed and killed many Mayan villagers in Acteal, Chiapas. Gifted writer Juan Felipe Herrera has composed a stirring poem sequence--published in a bilingual format--written in response and homage to those who died, as well as to all those who call for peace and justice in the Mexican highlands and throughout the Americas. Thunderweavers is a story of violent displacements in the lives of the most impoverished residents of southern Mexico, the Tzotzil Tzeltal campesinos. It deals with the destruction of a people and all evidence of their lives: Why am I Tzotzil?- Why was I born in this land of so many storms?- I plant corn and yet I reap gunpowder- I plant coffee and yet I reap mad spirits- I plant my house and yet I reap the viscera- of this fallen earth. The sections are written in the voices of four women from a family in Chiapas: Xunka, a lost twelve-year-old girl; Pascuala, the mother; grandmother Maruch; and Makal, an older daughter who is pregnant. Each voice weaves into the others and speaks for still other members of the larger Mayan and Native American family. Herrera, a major Chicano poet known for his expansive, surreal writing, here takes on a spare and lyrical style in the tradition of Rosario Castellanos, recalling as well the canto legacy of Pablo Neruda and the testimonial call of Ernesto Cardenal. Thunderweavers is a poetic account of transcendence and continuity in the midst of chaos, suffering, and war-a Mayan cycle of personal, physical, and spiritual struggles that Indian women have been continuously engaged in for th-a past five hundred years.

Includes an audio CD of the author reading!For nearly four decades, Juan Felipe Herrera has documented his experience as a Chicano in the United States and Latin America through stunning, memorable poetry that is both personal and universal in its impact, themes, and approach. Often political, never fainthearted, his career has been marked by tremendous virtuosity and a unique sensibility for uncovering the unknown and the unexpected. Through a variety of stages and transformations, Herrera has evolved more than almost any other Chicano poet, always re-inventing himself into a more mature and seasoned voice.Now, in this unprecedented collection, we encounter the trajectory of this highly innovative and original writer, bringing the full scope of his singular vision into view. Beginning with early material from A Certain Man and moving through thirteen of his collections into new, previously unpublished work, this assemblage also includes an audio CD of the author reading twenty-four selected poems aloud. Serious scholars and readers alike will now have available to them a representative set of glimpses into his production as well as his origins and personal development. The ultimate value of bringing together such a collection, however, is that it will allow us to better understand and appreciate the complexity of what this major American poet is all about.

From former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera comes a searing bilingual collection that speaks directly to America and all its peoples. Flourishing Shadows / Sombras Florecientes is a lyrical journey through migration, memory, and resistance—an urgent address to a nation grappling with its identity. Blending autobiography and Indigenous, Chicanx, and Beat traditions, Herrera reclaims language as a tool of compassion and truth. With ink drawings and evocative verse, this book honors the migrants who traverse borders and histories, flourishing even in the shadows. A call to listen, to remember, and to act.More than a poetic critique, this book initiates a conversation—a direct address to readers that invites reflection, solidarity, and action. Drawing on his anthropological training and lived experience, Herrera weaves together the cultural richness of Indigenous Mexico, the urban vibrancy of San Francisco's literary scene, and the enduring legacy of migrant journeys. Flourishing Shadows / Sombras Florecientes is a vital addition to the Camino del Sol series and a powerful testament to the resilience and humanity of those too often relegated to the margins.

A hybrid collection of texts written and performed on the road, from Mexico City to San Francisco, from Central America to central California, illustrated throughout with photos and artwork. Rants, manifestos, newspaper cutups, street theater, anti-lectures, love poems, and riffs tell the story of what it's like to live outlaw and brown in the United States. Juan Felipe Herrera is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. The author of twenty-one books, he is also a community arts leader and a dynamic performer and actor. He is the son of Mexican immigrants and grew up in the migrant fields of California.

The Books We Love in 2016 - The New Yorker Best Poetry Collections of 2015 - The Washington Post Best Books 2015: Poetry - Library Journal Best Books of 2015 - NPR Books 16 Best Poetry Books of 2015 - BuzzFeed Books Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Latino Poet Laureate of the United States and son of Mexican immigrants, grew up in the migrant fields of California. Exuberant and socially engaged, reflective and healing, this collection of new work from the nation's first Latino Poet Laureate is brimming with the wide-open vision and hard-won wisdom of a poet whose life and creative arc have spanned chasms of culture in an endless crossing, dreaming and back again. "[This year] Juan Felipe Herrera's Notes on the Assemblage has been a ladder of hope ..."--Ada Limon, The New Yorker "Juan Felipe Herrera's family has gone from migrant worker to poet laureate of the United States in one generation. One generation. I am an adamant objector to the Horatio Alger myth of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, but Herrera's story is one of epic American proportions.The heads carved into my own Mount Rushmas would be Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Frida Kahlo, El Chapulin Colorado, Selena, and Juan Felipe Herrera. Notes from the Assemblage further carves out Herrera's place in American letters."--David Tomas Martinez "At home with field workers, wage slaves, the homeless, little children, old folks, artists, traditionalists, the avant-garde, students, scholars and prisoners, the bilingual Juan Felipe Herrera is the real thing: a populist treasure. He will fulfill his appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate with the same high energy, savvy, passion, compassion, commitment and playfulness that his art and life's have always embodied. Bravo! Bravo!"--Al Young "While reporters can give you the what, when, and where of a war, a poet with the enormous gifts of Juan Herrera can give you its soul."--Ishmael Reed "I am proud that Juan Felipe Herrera has been appointed U.S. Poet Laureate, bringing his truthful, beautiful voice to all of us universally. As the first Chicano Laureate, he will empower all diverse cultures."--Janice Mirikitani "Herrera is ...a sometimes hermetic, wildly inventive, always unpredictable poet, whose work commands attention for its style alone ...Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed."--The New York Times "Herrera has the unusual capacity to write convincing political poems that are as personally felt as poems can be."--National Public Radio

Voted a Best Poetry Book of the Year by Library JournalIncluded in Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Poetry Books of the YearOne of LitHub's most Anticipated Books of the Year!A State of the Union from the nation’s first Latino Poet Laureate. Trenchant, compassionate, and filled with hope."Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed."—New York Times"Herrera has the unusual capacity to write convincing political poems that are as personally felt as poems can be."—NPR"Juan Felipe Herrera's magnificent new poems in Every Day We Get More Illegal testify to the deepest parts of the American dream—the streets and parking lots, the stores and restaurants and futures that belong to all—from the times when hope was bright, more like an intimate song than any anthem stirring the blood."—Naomi Shihab Nye, The New York Times Magazine"From Basho to Mandela, Every Day We Get More Illegal takes us on an international tour for a lesson in the history of resistance from a poet who declares, 'I had to learn . . . to take care of myself . . . the courage to listen to my self.'  You hold in your hands evidence of who we really are."—Jericho Brown, author of The Tradition"These poems talk directly to America, to migrant people, and to working people. Herrera has created a chorus to remind us we are alive and beautiful and powerful."—José Olivarez, Author of Citizen Illegal"The poet comes to his country with a book of songs, and asks: America, are you listening? We better listen. There is wisdom in this book, there is a choral voice that teaches us 'to gain, pebble by pebble, seashell by seashell, the courage.' The courage to find more grace, to find flames."—Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf RepublicIn this collection of poems, written during and immediately after two years on the road as United States Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera reports back on his travels through contemporary America. Poems written in the heat of witness, and later, in quiet moments of reflection, coalesce into an urgent, trenchant, and yet hope-filled portrait. The struggle and pain of those pushed to the edges, the shootings and assaults and injustices of our streets, the lethal border game that separates and divides, and then: a shift of register, a leap for peace and a view onto the possibility of unity.Every Day We Get More Illegal is a jolt to the conscience—filled with the multiple powers of the many voices and many textures of every day in America."Former Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera should also be Laureate of our Millennium—a messenger who nimbly traverses the transcendental liminalities of the United States . . ."—Carmen Gimenez Smith, author of Be Recorder