The first Latino to serve as United States Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera has published energetic, immediate, eloquent work that has been compared to that of Walt Whitman, César Vallejo, and Allen Ginsberg. As Jennifer Benka, executive director of the Academy of American Poets, notes, he is “someone who believes that poetry can make a difference in people’s lives and communities.” I recently spoke over the phone with Herrera, who will present an evening of poetry Monday, February 1, at UCSB.
You went from serving as Poet Laureate of California directly into the position of Poet Laureate of the United States. What have those two very public positions taught you about the state of poetry in California and across the country? Everyone is hungry for poetry, and everyone delights in it — from high school poetry clubs to support organizations, children who read tons of books, and, of course, spoken word. We do need more bilingual poetries and events, as well, which are on the rise. And the poetry festivals are making progress in their diversity outreach. At the same time, we are losing great writers like Phil Levine, C.D. Wright, and Francisco X. Alarcón.
Would you say the emphasis of poetry is shifting? One of the shifts is toward poetry zines such as Paperbag in the old Tin Pan Alley of N.Y.C. They’re run by young ruffian MFA grads — Adam Soldofsky is one great example. We need to make the existence of these new trends more public. People respond to the call of poetry with urgent excitement.