By Kira Shannon
The act of sharing poetry serves to give our ancestors a longer life span, says poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. “You’re giving your ancestors more life, more time — living in the lives of others that listen to that story that you’ve told in a poem,” he recently told an audience of UC Santa Barbara students.
The spoken-word reading event was a cross campus collaboration hosted by the English Department, the Comparative Literature Program, the Spanish & Portuguese Department, as well as the the Dean of Social Sciences, Chicana/o Studies, the MultiCultural Center, and UCSB’s Vice Chancellor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Latino to be appointed as a U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015 shared his poetry with UC Santa Barbara students.
Herrera was the first Latino to be appointed as a U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015 and served as the California Poet Laureate in 2012. For his UCSB audience, he recited his original works and created new works on the fly, then answered questions as part of panel discussion with Santa Barbara City College professor Juan Casillas-Núñez and UCSB professors Jorge Omar Ramírez-Pimienta and Francisco Lomelí.
Herrera said his strategy for illustrating poetry is simple. “I add four adjectives and see what happens to the last word.” Much like the ‘exploding soups’ he made as a child—crafted from random ingredients he found around the house—he discovered that creating poetry using just four adjectives let him experiment and find excitement in the final result.
Herrera’s work transcends traditional poetry, encompassing books, memoirs, theatrical pieces, and more. He explained to the audience that his love for poetry stems largely from using it as a way to express himself. “It’s really a universe of language and a universe of communication, so it became my way of speaking,” Herrera said.
For Herrera, play is a key factor in developing his work. He described the importance of rhythm and beats in his poems. The poet advised students and other writers to invite a friend over to play an instrument while writing poetry, to develop a piece that flows.
Many of Herrera’s work have deep social implications and are inspired by events happening in our world. After hearing about the passing of Eric Garner at the hands of New York City police officers in 2014, he was moved to write about the incident and its impacts. “I just naturally started writing something,” he said. “I got into a rhythm.”
Poet Juan Felipe Herrera, third from left, asked members of the audience to perform poetry with him during his poetry and spoken word event .
He tested his own poem about the event, “Almost Livin' Almost Dyin'” with the audience, conducting a read-along as he tapped his foot to the beat of the poem.
“Eric Garner whose last words were not words they were just breath askin' for breath,” he recited, “they were just burnin’ like me like we are all still burnin,' can you hear me.”
He shared his piece, 'How to Make World Unity Salsa,' an uplifting poem that celebrates embracing and honoring our differences. “Your fingers on the rock, Your palm on the stone, Your eyes on the inside, Your bones on the soul.” He also spoke about his book, 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border, a political piece to protest mistreatment of Latine people.
Herrera emphasized that poetry is a collaborative art form. He invited the audience to shout out random words, which were then consecutively read aloud by a volunteer, resulting in verses that showcased the creative power of collective input.
Kira Shannon is a second-year UCSB student majoring in Film & Media Studies. She is a Web and Social Media Intern with the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.