Retired Fresno State Professor New U.S. Poet Laureate

There is a new U.S. Poet Laureate and he is right here in the valley.

He is in the same company as Robert Frost and Philip Levine.

Retired Fresno State professor Juan Felipe Herrera is the first Latino, U-S Poet Laureate.

His experience growing up in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley shaped his work.

"Telling our stories and keeping everyone’s stories alive for others to read," Juan Felipe Herrera explained what motivates him to write about his childhood.

Herrera has spent much of his life telling the stories of Mexican immigrants.
His parents were migrant farm workers who moved from ranch to ranch in the Central Valley.

‘"And there’s my mom reciting poems, just stood up and recited poems," Herrera pointed to an illustration in one of his books.

His parents planted the seeds of creativity and story-telling in Juan Felipe’s mind.
His children’s book… ‘Calling the Doves’ … recounts some of his earliest memories.

Herrera reads from the book: "My father made bird calls. He would put his hands up to his mouth and whistle deeply as if he had a tiny clarinet inside the palms of his hands. ‘This is how a dove sings’ my father would say. Sooner or later a real dove would fly in and perch itself on a nearby tree."

The book is written in English and Spanish. English on one page, the same verse in Spanish on the next.
He has published 29 books while teaching at Fresno State and U-C Riverside.
A career that came about from his fascination with words and writing.
One he discovered in elementary and middle school.

"Just continuing to write and love writing and find things in writing, to little words, and pens and ink, the way they sounded, the way they looked. I mean I really got inside the writing," Herrera said.

He has filled dozens of journals with ideas, interviews, and inspiration.
Always preparing for his next project.

"It’s like going to meet someone for the first time, and it’s that kind of energy. It’s that kind of energy. You want to go see that person. And you don’t know who that person is. But you know you’re going to see this person. And that’s the drive right there," Herrera said

That drive is keeping alive the stories of the Central Valley.

Herrera served as California’s Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014.

Herrera is the second Poet Laureate from Fresno. Former Fresno State professor Philip Levine served as Poet Laureate from from 2011 to 2012. Levine passed away in February.