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New US poet laureate


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Juan Felipe Herrera is the incoming guy. I haven't read any of his (many) books. Has anyone here?

At the University of California, Los Angeles, Mr. Herrera studied anthropology and threw himself into the Chicano civil rights movement and experimental theater. He moved to the Bay Area and joined the Beat ferment, often teaming up with a cadre of poets who were active in the Mission District of San Francisco.

By the time he landed at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he earned his M.F.A. in 1990, he was already over 40, with four small press books to his name.

Sounds like a very different Mission District.

Related.

The U.S. poet laureate's one-year term doesn't carry a lot of prescribed responsibilities — "the Library keeps to a minimum [its] specific duties," according to the announcement — but past laureates have often embarked on projects to advocate on behalf of the form and to widen its audience. And if there's anything to be gleaned from Herrera's past, it's that Herrera likely will be active in the new position, too.

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