Poems and Passions
Merriam-Webster defines poetry rather unpoetically, as writing that generates an emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. Emily Dickinson’s description, meanwhile, makes it sound pretty cool: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry,” Dickinson said in 1870. Here and now,
Juan Felipe Herrera (
187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border) combines technical chops with personal passion and seems an all-around reason to get excited about the literary form. Herrera is the first Mexican-American to serve as U.S. poet laureate. Influenced by his migrant farmworker mother, the Chicano civil-rights movement, Luis Valdez, Allen Ginsberg, and his time spent in San Francisco’s Mission District, he writes with conviction about immigration and other social issues. He embraces the oral traditions that are increasingly characterizing American poetry. He is also a children’s-book author, cartoonist, and performance artist. Herrera is in town tonight, sharing his words and thoughts. Leading off the evening will be 16-year-old Tova Ricardo, Oakland youth poet laureate.
— Anita Katz
415-292-1200
