Juan Felipe Herrera and Half of the World in Light
NYTIMES: The child of migrant workers and now a professor at the University of California, Riverside, Herrera began to publish and perform verse in the late 1960s and early ’70s, amid the Chicano cultural ferment of Los Angeles and San Diego; he has been, and should be, admired for his portrayals of Chicano life. Yet he is no mere recorder of social conditions.
MY OLD MAN just caught a write-up in the New York Times for his latest book.
Most of Juan Felipe Herrera’s many books evoke at once the hardships that Mexican-Americans have undergone and the exhilarating space for self-reinvention that a New World art offers. The child of migrant workers and now a professor at the University of California, Riverside, Herrera began to publish and perform verse in the late 1960s and early ’70s, amid the Chicano cultural ferment of Los Angeles and San Diego; he has been, and should be, admired for his portrayals of Chicano life. Yet he is no mere recorder of social conditions. Herrera is, instead, a sometimes hermetic, wildly inventive, always unpredictable poet, whose work commands attention for its style alone.
—‘Punk Half Panther’, By STEPHEN BURT, nytimes.com
Pick it up here. He ain’t too shabby, you’ll probably enjoy it.
This is so awesome! I can see where you have gotten your literary skills and I have a new author to check out!!!
Congratulations to the both of you.
Love and light all the day long.
Danielle
thanks for the good energy, as always, danielle!
i’m pretty lucky genetically. both of my biological parents are talented writers in their own way.
Listen Herrera, the sooner you can get my words painted on the Anarchist’s Chihuahua’s T-shirt, the better. Your father’s rundown at the Times was really high praise for them. Congratulations to him and thanks for the heads up.
i’ll get on that pronto, RC.
thanks.
This is my first real visit to your blog (I think I clicked through once before) and I will be back. I’m enjoying your writing – reading some of it out loud to hear what you have to say.
And thanks for the link to your father. I plan on looking for that book. I noticed in the article that he has written for children as well. I’ll keep an eye out for that too. Poetry for children is special stuff.
Tracy
tracy, thanks for the words on my father, he does have a number of kids books. some of them i read to my own kids.
and thanks for the words on my own writing.