Juan Felipe Herrera

For the first time, this book presents the distinguished, prolific, and highly experimental writer Juan Felipe Herrera. This wide-ranging collection of essays by leading experts offers critical approaches on Herrera, who transcends ethnic and mainstream poetics. It expertly demonstrates Herreras versatility, resourcefulness, innovations, and infinite creativity. As a poet Herrera has had an enormous impact within and beyond Chicano poetics. He embodies much of the advancements and innovations found in American and Latin American poetry from the early l970s to the present. His writings have no limits or boundaries, indulging in the quotidian as well as the overarching topics of his era at different periods of his life. Both Herrera and his work are far from being unidimensional. His poetics are eclectic, incessantly diverse, transnational, unorthodox, and distinctive. Reading Herrera is an act of having to rearrange your perceptions about things, events, historical or intra-historical happenings, and people. The essays in this work delve deeply into Juan Felipe Herreras oeuvre and provide critical perspectives on his body of work. They include discussion of Chicanx indigeneity, social justice, environmental imaginaries, Herreras knack for challenging theory and poetics, transborder experiences, transgeneric constructions, and childrens and young adult literature. This book includes an extensive interview with the poet and a voluminous bibliography on everything by, about, and on the author. The chapters in this book offer a deep dive into the life and work of an internationally beloved poet who, along with serving as the poet laureate of California and the U.S. poet laureate, creates work that fosters a deep understanding of and appreciation for peoples humanity. Contributors: Trevor Boffone Marina Bernardo-Flrez Manuel de Jess Hernndez-G. Whitney DeVos Michael Dowdy Osiris Anbal Gmez Carmen Gonzlez Ramos Cristina Herrera Mara Herrera-Sobek Francisco A. Lomel Tom Lutz Manuel M. Martn-Rodrguez Marzia Milazzo Maria Antnia Oliver-Rotger Rafael Prez-Torres Renato Rosaldo Donaldo W. Urioste Luis Alberto Urrea Santiago Vaquera-Vsquez