I've worked throughout California as a poet: in colleges, universities, worker camps, migrant education offices, continuation high schools, juvenile halls, prisons, and gifted classrooms. Juan Felipe Herrera More Quotes by Juan Felipe Herrera More Quotes From Juan Felipe Herrera Before you go further, let me tell you what a poem brings, first, you must know the secret, there is no poem to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries. Juan Felipe Herrera secretwayfirsts We can understand poetry from a billion - in a billion styles, experiment, tradition, combination, spice, meter, image. It's all there for the poet and for the listener and for all of us. Juan Felipe Herrera spicestraditionstyle A poem is a flexible thing, and a poem is a poem. Juan Felipe Herrera flexible If you're going to embrace the people with poetry nationally, it’s a good thing to write about tragedy, the poem likes to be with people at times of difficulty. Juan Felipe Herrera entertainment Let's detox our cluttered academic brain. That's what the poet does. People call it daydreaming, detoxing our minds and taking care of that clutter. It's being able to let in call letters from the poetry universe. Juan Felipe Herrera carepoetrybrainpeople Diversity really means becoming complete as human beings - all of us. We learn from each other. If you're missing on that stage, we learn less. We all need to be on that stage. Juan Felipe Herrera needyoudiversitymissing A pen is different from the pad, the key, moving your fingers across a screen. I like both. I like to work on sketchbooks, big old white sketch paper. I like how that feels, and I like to put different media on it. Then there's the phone, smartphone, iPad: It's the new page, and it's not the same page anymore. Juan Felipe Herrera sketchphonewhitework Migrants all over the world are pushed and pulled across borders by hunger, terror and climate change. It happened to my own family. Juan Felipe Herrera climate-changefamilychangeworld I want our young Latinos and Latinas to write their hearts out and express their hearts out and let us all listen to each other. Juan Felipe Herrera listenusyoungwant Do not wait for a poem; a poem is too fast for you. Do not wait for the poem; run with the poem and then write the poem. Juan Felipe Herrera fastwaitrunyou I tell my workshop students, 'I want you to think of yourselves as artists. Then, when you're writing, you're painting, you're crafting, you're making a design, you're sculpting, you're creating choreography, sound, a sound script.' Juan Felipe Herrera thinkyoupaintingdesign I remember looking at James Joyce's journals. It was just amazing - it looked like ants had written on the page. So much writing on one page, every corner of the page was filled. Some of the lines were underlined in yellow or blue or red. A lot of color, intense writing. Juan Felipe Herrera lookingredblueyellow As a boy, I felt ashamed of being Mexican. I'd say I was Hawaiian. Juan Felipe Herrera boysaybeingashamed Marvin Bell always looked very closely at how lines could break, how you could put over one line into the second line. How you could stop the line two or three times within the line: You could make it stop. Juan Felipe Herrera stopyoualwaysthree The more we engage in society, the more firsts we have, then there will be a moment when we have no more firsts. Or maybe there will always be new firsts. Juan Felipe Herrera newwillmomentsociety I write while I'm walking, on little scraps of paper. If I have a melody going, I can feel it for days. Juan Felipe Herrera feelmelodyi-canwalking Poetry can tell us about what's going on in our lives - not only our personal but our social and political lives. Juan Felipe Herrera personaltellpoliticalpoetry All voices are important, and yet it seems that people of color have a lot to say, particularly if you look through the poetry of young people - a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about immigration and security issues, you name it - big questions. Juan Felipe Herrera lookyoupoetrypeople I'm a political poet - let us say a 'human' poet, a poet that's concerned with the plight of people who suffer. If words can be of assistance, then that's what I'm going to use. Juan Felipe Herrera wordssaypoliticalpeople Sometimes I have a very fleeting emotional dance with a fleeting phrase, like 'half-Mexican.' Juan Felipe Herrera likeemotionaldancesometimes
