Herrera, Juan Felipe

Juan Felipe Herrera

September 15, 1993

Photographer

LaVerne Harrell Clark

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Juan Felipe Herrera

February 23, 2023

Photographer

Paola Valenzuela

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Readings from this author

February 23, 2023 - Juan Felipe Herrera with Farid Matuk

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera begins with English and Spanish readings from Akrílica (2022), trading languages with translator Farid Matuk. Together, they also read Herrera’s poem "i am not a paid protestor," which Herrera terms a "duo poem" for two voices in dialogue with one another. Herrera closes out the reading with poems and remarks about mass shootings, classical music, space exploration, and human suffering and connection.

March 14, 2009 - Juan Felipe Herrera

Juan Felipe Herrera performs his poetry and speaks movingly about song, language, and family in a reading given alongside Sherwin Bitsui for the 2009 Tucson Festival of Books. Herrera's Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, published by the University of Arizona Press, was announced as the winner of the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award just two days prior to this reading.

September 15, 1993 - Juan Felipe Herrera

Juan Felipe Herrera warmly engages the audience with work that would be collected in books such as Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America (1997), Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler (2002), and Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008), as well as uncollected pieces. Standout performances include "Notes on Other Chicana and Chicano Inventions" and "Suicide in Hollywood / Lupe Velez (Circ. 1923) Serigrafía de una actriz Mexicana," read in Spanish and English. Opening his reading with an invocation to sky, earth, wind, and fire, Herrera encourages audience laughter and participation throughout the evening.

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