United States Poet Laureate: Featuring, Juan Felipe Herrera

Poetry Reading: Thursday, March 3, 7:00 p.m.: Poetry Reading, UWM Union Ballroom

Craft Talk: Friday, March 4, 2:00 p.m.: Craft Talk, Bolton Hall, Room B52

This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the reading.

The 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016), Juan Felipe Herrera is the first Latino to hold the position. He grew up in California as the son of migrant farmers, which shaped much of his work, and from 2012-2014, he served as California State Poet Laureate. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among many other prestigious awards.

Herrera is the author of thirty books, including collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children. His many collections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007; and Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. In 2014, he released the nonfiction work Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes, which showcases twenty Hispanic and Latino American men and women who have made outstanding contributions to the arts, politics, science, humanitarianism, and athletics.

He has served as chair of the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department at CSU-Fresno and recently retired from the Creative Writing Department at UC Riverside. He is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth.