Famous poet crowned as U.S. Poet Laureate

zainab quadri

June 10, 2015 5:23 PM

Library of Congress announced poet laureate will be California writer Juan Felipe Herrera.

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Prepared to be stunned poetry lovers as the Library of Congress announced in the wee hours Wednesday that the next U.S. poet laureate will be California writer Juan Felipe Herrera.

According to NPR Herrera said in an announcement "This is a mega-honor for me, for my family and my parents who came up north before and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the honor is bigger than me."

A poet of Chicano descent, the 66-year-old Herrera has spent just about his whole life on the West Coast. Born to a family of migrant farm workers, he bounced from tent to trailer for much of his youth in Southern California, eventually going on to study at UCLA and Stanford.

Along the way, Herrera has been prolific — so prolific, in fact, that few seem to agree about just how many books the man has written. (Some say 30, others 29, and the Library of Congress says 28) Those works include poetry collections, novels in verse and plenty of children's books. Across this body of work, the shadow of California, and his cultural heritage, has loomed large.

The U.S. poet laureate's one-year term doesn't carry a lot of prescribed responsibilities, "the Library keeps to a minimum [its] specific duties," according to the announcement — but past laureates have often embarked on projects to advocate on behalf of the form, and to widen its audience. And if there's anything to be gleaned from Herrera's past, it's that Herrera likely will be active in the new position, too.

In a conversation with the journal Zyzzyva, Herrera set out a mini-manifesto of sorts for the role of the writer as teacher.

"These days I think it is good to be in society — to wake yourself up in the throng and mix of people on sidewalks, subways and cafeterias — so teaching writing keeps me at the root of things: new voices, new experiences and new ways of meditating on life and the planet," Herrera said. "Both are extremely essential."

"Poetry," he said, in an interview two years earlier with The Los Angeles Times, "can tell us about what's going on in our lives, not only our personal but our social and political lives."

Herrera is expected to step into the position this fall with the National Book Festival in September. He will succeed Charles Wright, the current U.S. poet laureate. No word yet on when they plan to exchange their poetic licenses.

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