Overview

"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 Limón, 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 Rushmás would be Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Frida Kahlo, El Chapulín 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"

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Reviews

Praise for Juan Felipe Herrera: 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. --Stephen Burt, The New York Times Herrera has the unusual capacity to write convincing political poems that are as personally felt as poems can be. --Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR 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 [Herrera's] art goes beyond his 'Latinoness,' for he writes about the human condition more than anything. --The Boston Globe Herrera's poems [are] the work of an American original----work that takes the sublimity and largess of Leaves of Grass and expands upon it ... [Herrera's] poems champion voices, traditions and histories, as well as a cultural perspective, which is a vital part of our larger American identity. --James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress The elder statesman of Mexican American poetry &hellp; [Herrera] looks at the world not from the top down but from the bottom up. ----Dana Gioia, former National Endowment for the Arts chairman He has spent his life crossing borders, erasing boundaries and expanding the American chorus. --The Washington Post

Juan Felipe Herrera's appointment is a timely one, particularly as we enter an election year that's fraught with the usual anxiety and misinformation about immigration issues. Herrera is a beloved poet whose extensive body of work reminds us that the politicized world of the immigrant, and of the Mexican community within the United States in particular, also participate in shaping the rich cultural identity of American literature. --Rigoberto Gonzalez As he assumes his post as the 21st U.S. Poet Laureate--Herrera is releasing a visually acute, punch-in-the-gut collection that shows off both his craft and his heart. Wound even more tightly than his previous collections ... As always, Herrera's signature language is immediate, visceral, in the moment, sometimes razzy-jazzy, and compacted to create intensive feeling. Urgently written and important to read, even if Herrera weren't in the Library of Congress limelight. --Barbara Hoffert, Libary Journal, starred review Notes on the Assemblage provides a splendid introduction to the expansive work of Juan Felipe Herrera, the nation's new poet laureate. ... The son of migrant farm workers, Herrera powerfully conveys the experience of migrants who have languished in detention camps and feel apprehensive as they approach the U.S. border. He also knows, firsthand, the frustration of being labeled 'half Mexican,' as if he were neither a true Mexican nor a real American ... Herrera's background as a performance artist shows in many poems, which come alive when read aloud. Herrera, who has published multiple poetry collections and young-adult novels, easily handles an array of topics and knows how to capture both the pulse of the news and timeless subjects such as people's deep longings for justice. The collection ends with a moving poem about the nine people killed this year in a South Carolina church: 'they are not 9 they / are each one / alive / we do not know / you have a poem to offer / it is made of action -- you must / search for it run.' --Elizabeth Lund, The Washington Post Herrera's new bilingual collection arrives in the same month as his appointment as the 21st US Poet Laureate, and the first ever Hispanic person to hold the office, goes into effect. Herrera offers glorious reflections: 'it can begin with clouds how they fray how they enter / then how they envelop the earth.' He also conjures powerful outcries, like his poem 'Ayotzinapa,' which honors '42 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School [who] went missing after police in the city of Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico opened fire on their buses and kidnapped a group of 43.' And his poem 'Almost Livin' Almost Dyin honors Michael Brown, whose death at the hands of a police officer set off protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Herrera offers intimate odes to recently departed poets Wanda Coleman and Jack Gilbert, Jayne Cortez, Phil Levine, Jose Montoya. This is Herrera at his best, a poet who chronicles our times. --Jane Ciabattari, BBC

Juan Felipe Herrera's appointment is a timely one, particularly as we enter an election year that's fraught with the usual anxiety and misinformation about immigration issues. Herrera is a beloved poet whose extensive body of work reminds us that the politicized world of the immigrant, and of the Mexican community within the United States in particular, also participate in shaping the rich cultural identity of American literature. --Rigoberto Gonzalez As he assumes his post as the 21st U.S. Poet Laureate--Herrera is releasing a visually acute, punch-in-the-gut collection that shows off both his craft and his heart. Wound even more tightly than his previous collections ... As always, Herrera's signature language is immediate, visceral, in the moment, sometimes razzy-jazzy, and compacted to create intensive feeling. Urgently written and important to read, even if Herrera weren't in the Library of Congress limelight. --Barbara Hoffert, Libary Journal, starred review Notes on the Assemblage provides a splendid introduction to the expansive work of Juan Felipe Herrera, the nation's new poet laureate. ... The son of migrant farm workers, Herrera powerfully conveys the experience of migrants who have languished in detention camps and feel apprehensive as they approach the U.S. border. He also knows, firsthand, the frustration of being labeled 'half Mexican,' as if he were neither a true Mexican nor a real American ... Herrera's background as a performance artist shows in many poems, which come alive when read aloud. Herrera, who has published multiple poetry collections and young-adult novels, easily handles an array of topics and knows how to capture both the pulse of the news and timeless subjects such as people's deep longings for justice. The collection ends with a moving poem about the nine people killed this year in a South Carolina church: 'they are not 9 they / are each one / alive / we do not know / you have a poem to offer / it is made of action -- you must / search for it run.' --Elizabeth Lund, The Washington Post

Author Information

Appointed as the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015, Juan Felipe Herrera is the son of migrant farm workers, and was educated at UCLA and Stanford University, and received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. His numerous poetry collections include 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008), and Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (1999). In addition to publishing more than a dozen collections of poetry, Herrera has written short stories, young adult novels, and children's literature. In 2012, Herrera was named California's poet laureate. He has won the Hungry Mind Award of Distinction, the Focal Award, two Latino Hall of Fame Poetry Awards, and a PEN West Poetry Award. His honors include the UC Berkeley Regent's Fellowship as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Stanford Chicano Fellows. He has also received several grants from the California Arts Council. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. His creative work often crosses genres, including poetry opera and dance theater. His children's book, The Upside Down Boy (2000), was adapted into a musical. His books for children and young adults have won several awards, including Calling the Doves (2001), which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, and Crashbomlove (1999), a novel-in-verse for young adults which won the Americas Award. His book Half The World in Light is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle prize in 2009.

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