Tag Archives: Juan Felipe Herrera

A Natural History of Filipino American Literature?

Performance/Lecture.

It’s no secret how much Juan Felipe Herrera’s performance lecture, “A Natural History of Chicano Literature” has rocked my world. I have always loved the casualness of this talk, coupled with its intensity, its literary and historical reach. I love that its being interdisciplinary — soundly academic, poetic, talk story. Of course, we know the community value of such talk story sessions; we know how necessary they are to us, as communities traditionally thwarted by American institutions.

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Poets of Color: Some Questions Regarding the Democratization of Poetry

I’m out of town next week, and so one of my intrepid TA’s has agreed to be in charge of next week’s class, in which discussion will be based upon the video I talk a LOT about, Juan Felipe Herrera’s “A Natural History of Chicano Literature.” I’ve just watched it again, and am in the process of making notes, important points, issues/ideas relevant to our continued and expanding discussion of the democratization of poetry, and poets of color movements being closely tied to social justice issues and community activism.

The democratization of poetry is interesting to me, in terms of it being much needed, i.e. wresting it away from academic institutions, and expanding the definitions of American Poetry to be more inclusive of poetries that expand genre and use of language, poetries that are inextricable parts of social and political movements. We continue to discuss the importance of having our own physical and intellectual spaces to create new languages and terminology, to create, disseminate, discuss our poetries. I’m operating here on a given (for me) that we are dealing with hybrid and/or hybridized communities and identities, hence hybrid and/or hybridized language and art (as opposed to fractured communities and identities). Hence, Kearny Street Workshop, the Basement Workshop, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the 1973 Floricanto, and the fluidity of these.

Thinking on the need to expand the boundaries of poetry, I’d pointed out yesterday evening that Pietri and Piñero were poets and playwrights. I talked about the live performance, the “spoken word” not as a new thing, but as a continuation of a very old, pre-literature talkstory tradition. In this Herrera video, he says, “We need as many different mediums as possible to express as many realities as possible.” Think about the art of these social and political movements including dance, guerrilla theater, murals, silk screened posters, song, and indeed, poetry that is a rallying cry, a call to action. So the immediacy of our poetry, communicating what is urgent, charging a space and those who inhabit it to feel, to act, and indeed, to pass it on. The audience then as a empowered participant, empowered by a sense of responsibility to DO.

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Learning from Juan Felipe Herrera: Let Me Tell You What A Poem Brings

Congratulations to Juan Felipe Herrera! I am very happy to hear that his latest book, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press, 2008) has just won the 2008 National Book Critics’ Circle award in poetry. He shares this year’s award with August Kleinzahler’s Sleeping It Off in Rapid City.

You can read the interview “Reclaiming the Sleepless Volcano: How celebrated Chicano poet Juan Felipe Herrera found his voice,” over at the Poetry Foundation website here. Many things to admire and learn from in this interview, and I found the section on “learning craft” “outside” of the grassroots community very interesting:

In 1988, around the time he was polishing the final text of Akrílica, Herrera left California for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. There, under the tutelage of Jorie Graham, Gerald Stern, and Marvin Bell, Herrera began to learn craft. “Juan Felipe, you’ve got to work on simplicity,” Herrera remembers Stern saying. “You’re too complicated. You’re obscure. I recommend you work toward simplicity.”

“What do you mean, I’m obscure?” Herrera thought to himself. “I want to be more obscure next time—wait till you hear my next piece.” He tried out simplicity anyway, and his newfound ability to write more clearly and concisely led him to publish in an unexpected genre. “I discovered Stern was right,” Herrera said.

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Academy of American Poets: Walt Whitman Award, speaking of Juan Felipe Herrera

The Walt Whitman Award brings first-book publication, a cash prize of $5,000, and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center to an American who has never before published a book of poetry. The winning manuscript, chosen by an eminent poet, is published by Louisiana State University Press. The Academy purchases copies of the book for distribution to its members.

The award was established in 1975 to encourage the work of emerging poets and to enable the publication of a poet’s first book. Submissions are accepted each year from September 15 to November 15, and an entry form and fee are required. The judge for the 2009 award is Juan Felipe Herrera.

More here.

* * *

For those who are so inclined to submit to the above award, go to it then. Juan Felipe, a poet for whom I have nothing but great respect, is judging, and this is great if you know anything about his work and his poetics. I can also say that being acknowledged by the Academy of American Poets has been quite good for me.

And on the subject of awards again for a second, my only suggestions or pieces of advice would be not to deplete your finances, and not to submit your manuscript to anything and everything that calls itself a first book award; that’s a waste of your good work. Finally, do everything humanly possible to make sure your poetry manuscript is really, the best thing you could possibly write — that is, until you are working on your next poetry manuscript.

Quickie Reading Update: Juan Felipe Herrera, Loteria Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives

A Book of Lives Loteria Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives (City Lights Books) by Juan Felipe Herrera

I just started reading this book last night, and wow! Something really happens when Juan Felipe Herrera gives himself very finite space in which to work and a super-focused writing project. Whereas the works of his I’ve previously read find political and/or historical sprawl contained in tight litany or, in the case of “Punk Half Panther,” in Border Crosser With a Lamborghini Dream, the formalistic sprawl is contained within Whitman-esque multitudes, there is no sprawl to speak of in Loteria Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives. And so the poems themselves pop. They are so crisp and rich, the music is so tight and lovely, not a word wasted. Even when he employs his usual address, “hey baby,” and all, the poems remain tight and oftentimes terse, and oftentimes, ironic, and really very funny. Still, Juan Felipe is able to leave these open ends for us, to leave more for us to think about than is apparent in the image. The images themselves, rendered by Artemio Rodriguez, are dense and complex, ominous, surprising, in contrast to the relatively straight forward, singular images on traditional loteria cards.

Very helpful introduction by Rupert Garcia, who provides us with some background information and history on the loteria, how it’s played, how poetry, wordplay, and social commentary are involved in the game, and a Mesoamerican indigenous game from which the loteria (may be?) based. Finally, Garcia likens Rodriguez’s woodcut style to Jose Guadalupe Posada‘s engravings and prints (lots of skeleton images), blendings of traditional and modern, spiritual and secular.

That’s all I got for now.

Update: California Poet Laureate News

[Shout out to Ching-In Chen for the info!]

There are four finalists for the position of California Poet Laureate.

I know of three:

(1) Marilyn Chin

(2) Francisco X. Alarcón

(3) Juan Felipe Herrera

(4) ???

Good morning folks!

Looks like our nomination has been worth it so far. I love it when the work we do, as poet activists, as activist poets, is actually noticed, and actually makes something of a difference. Certainly, this reminds me there is little time to be cynical, negative, or defeatist about poetry, or even about Poetry. I know I get swept up in all the negativity, other people’s neuroses and jealousies, so it’s awesome to be jarred out of it like this.

What happens next: Now Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the process of/will be reading our write-up on Juan Felipe. What a trip is that?

This is exciting, finding out bits of news, piece by piece, through various sources, formally and informally. It’s this awesome conversation in which California poet communities are practicing community by contributing to the picture what they know, what they’ve heard.

Francisco X. Alarcón read at La Peña this past weekend, and what a great and attentive presence he had. He paid tribute to Alfred Arteaga and performed an invocation to the five directions (N, E, S, W, and then each other), and read a few poems from Snake Poems, for which Alfred wrote the introduction. Alarcón discussed the origins of the work, and in all fairness, while I really couldn’t find my way into it before, I believe the book is well worth revisiting.

Anyway, I have lots of work to do this morning, but I just thought I’d share the news. I am thinking again of Lee Herrick’s poem, “My California,” which inspired me to write my poem of the same title. Indeed, Our California, which is Aztlán and Gold Mountain, and which has many other names, does look like its Poet Laureate finalists, and this makes me very happy this morning.

Poem Draft: West Oakland Invocation

West Oakland Invocation
After Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Blood Gang Call”

Calling all scrap metal pickers,
	the ones wearing leaden paint instead of blue jeans
Calling all watermelon & cherry vendors,
	come down the avenue to this traffic light
Calling all asbestos ceiling scrapers,
	you, yes, you the ones with your faces like bandits
Calling all barbwire twisters
	caught in the tetanus spell of puncture wound
Calling all crane operators
	high up in the heaven of diesel smoke, leather faced
Calling all corner store priests
	& corner store nuns & corner store saints worshiping cash money
Calling all police line crossers
	in the coroner van, in the assembly bed of bag ladies
Calling all cement pourers
	kneeling at the Krylon symbols chanting “Amen”
Calling all weapon concealers
	dropping shells in the form of another brother gone
Calling all micro mini skirts
	kicking lust down the Lower Bottoms
Calling all Cadillac shiners
	pimpin’ the sugary womb in search of babygirl
Calling all backhoe pilots
	Excavating the dregs of this city grave, anonymous
Calling all freeway weavers
	threading your arteries and veins with seismic retrofitting
Calling all scrap metal pickers,
	the old ones wearing garbage bag chic.

Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems by Juan Felipe Herrera!

Hey all, I’ve just received this press release from Juan Felipe Herrera:

Contact: Holly Schaffer, Publicity Manager
520-621-3920, hollys@uapress.arizona.edu

For Immediate Release

The University of Arizona Press, founded in 1959, is a nonprofit publisher of about fifty books each year, with over 800 books in print. Publications include scholarly and trade titles in Native American and Latina/o studies, anthropology, archaeology, nature writing and environmental studies, regional history, Latin American studies, and space sciences. The Press publishes two critically acclaimed series in fiction and poetry, Sun Tracks: An American Indian Literary Series, and Camino del Sol: A Latina and Latino Literary Series.

“The rich, chromatic imagery, the lyrical tone, and the flowing rhythm make the reading of this collection a profound experience, an experience not easily forgotten.” —Luis Leal, author of A Luis Leal Reader

New and Selected Poems by Juan Felipe HerreraHalf of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA
Publication Date: July 17, 2008
Camino del Sol: A Latina and Latino Literary Series
288 pages, 6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-8165-2703-8, $24.95 paper + CD

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera holds the Tomás Rivera Endowed chair in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. For the last thirty-five years, Juan Felipe has been writing, publishing, reading, performing, leading workshops, and organizing literary broadsides, journals, and publications in home communities and universities in California and throughout the nation. He is the author of 24 books, and he has more than one-hundred articles, poems, reviews, and essays in print.

The University of Arizona Press
355 S. Euclid Avenue, Suite 103 Tucson, AZ 85719
www.uapress.arizona.edu

Done!

Submitted the California Poet Laureate application for Juan Felipe Herrera! Oscar and Ching-In helped a LOT. As did Matthew, Lee, Craig and Achiote Press, Javier and the UC Berkeley Xican@ Culture Working Group.

Southeast Asian Studies Commencement Address writing completed! Just need to decide which poems to perform with the gamelan ensemble.

Tonight, I am chill.

That is all for now.