At the role of the US poet Laureate is to write works that recharge all segments of society, create a genuine excitement about poetry and bring a compelling personal story to back it up, then Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate seems to be the right man for the job. After two years serving as California's poet laureate, he is about to become the first Latino US poet laureate. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Did you know your name was in consideration as US poet Laureate? No, I was working the spring quarter. I got the call and it was at total surprise. It was at the head of the Library of Congress and he asked me if I was willing to serve as the Poet Laureate of the United States . After a few minutes of conversation, all I could say was yes and thank you and I'm humbled and honored. That's how it was. A lightning bolt that hit me right in the middle of my body. What are the duties of the poet Laureate? It's about encouraging everyone, inviting everyone to express themselves, the most tender part of themselves, the most energetic and creative. The part that keeps us going which is the poetry heart that we have go in terms of duties, real things that are mapped out. One is 15 September, I'll be the first week of December at the national poetry Festival -- book Festival in Washington DC. There's a reading to kick it off and then and an operation. In the middle of the set I will be serving and, at the end to close its with a talk. Also selecting to poets that's have written quite a bit and have not received their due recognition. I will be doing that as well. Juan, I'm mentioned you learned your first poems from your mother, what do you think those have had for you to go They are continuous impression. It's like being inspired as a very young child and that has always been rotating and flowing. Always moving. That's what happened. My mother sang to me from a very early age. Then I listened to them. I was three years old, because she loved poetry and language and reading, she would always tell me stories about how she came from Mexico City at the tail end of the Mexican Revolution with her mother and her sister. Imagine those early days on a train to what is -- warez. Playing those riddles and songs all the time. Your childhood was spent living all over California. You spent a good deal of time in San Diego. Can you tell me some of your memories of your time here. They are great memories. We have been living in Ramona up in the mountains. We came down the mountain and said we have to go to San Diego and my mother asked why are we leaving? You said they had the best water in the world so why are we leaving. He said San Diego has the best climates. We establish ourselves in local high-tech community and with the Burbank elementary and Logan elementary. I ended up in the Lowell elementary because we had moved to national Street go that's where I met Mrs. Lilia Sampson, my third grade teacher. She's the one who told me to come up in front of the class and sing. I've never spoken in class, I've been prohibited in speaking in Spanish so I had to find out about school. She invited me to sing a song and she was so nice and so kind and she loved music and singing so much. She told me I had a beautiful voice.. I was surprised and shocked, I did know what to do with that phrase. The rest of my life from third grade on the came unraveling that phrase about voice and beauty. I think that teacher was 94 now. She called me about a month ago and said guess what, I'm 94 years old. It's been a beautiful.. I used to walk all the streets of San Diego, I went to the beach and serves, I went to the movies and that's great friends who became great writers. I was in Roosevelt middle school, I was in the choir, I was in everything I could get an. I'm speaking with Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate. Would you read as one of your palms? Yes. This is called a song out here and it's a poem my new book coming out next month called nodes on the assemblage. -- Notes on the assemblage. If I could sing, I would say everything, you know from here on the streets. Can you turn around just for once I am here right behind you. What is that flag? What is it made of? Maybe it's too late I have too many questions, where did it all come from? What color is it made of, everything. Everything here in the subways, there's so many things and voices, we're going somewhere but I just don't know. Somewhere but I just don't know. Somewhere, do you know where that is? I want to sing so you can hear me and maybe you can tell me where to go so you can hear me and just maybe you can tell me where to go. All those hands and legs and face is going basis, if I could sing, you hear me and I would tell you it's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. It would be something like that. Can you turn around so I can look into your eyes just for once your eyes. Baby like hers, can you see her? And his, can you see them. I want you to see them, all of us, we could be together if I could sing we would go there. Fleetwood when they're together. We would live there for a while. In that tilted tiny house by the ocean, rising up inside of us. I'm on the curb, next to called up cat, smoking, I know it's bad for you. But you know how it is, just for once can you turn around, a straight line falling behind you. It's me. I want to sing. Invincible. Being out. Bleeding out with love just for you. That's Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate reciting his home song out here. I mentioned your the first Latino US poet Laureate, the first to come from a Mexican immigrant background. It's happening during a time when the political rhetoric against immigrants is heating up. How do you plan to address that as your time as Laureate? I spend my whole life writing poetry. And reciting it a regular children and teachers and schools in all communities throughout California and United States and Mexico and Central America. It has always been about empowering others. About including others. About taking down walls that separate us. That is the heart of it. There's so many devices, things going on that separate us from each other. Latinos as well as many others. We have been perhaps used as scapegoats. This is something I talk about in my poetry and I think many of us are talking about it, whether we write about poetry or not. It requires us putting aside our vices. It requires putting aside our hardened point of view. We need to see what's really going on. We need to see how people are suffering. The borders are made out of a lot of aggression at times. It takes so much to come back together again. I met very young people throughout California and they tell me I haven't seen my father for 17 years. These are teenagers better maybe since they were three years old haven't seen them. I am meet students and say a few Spanish words because I know the be tickled by that. I will say just a few things. I noticed after class, there was one student standing up he was looking at me like like I had 1 billion lights shining out of me. Or maybe he had 1 billion lights shining out of his eyes and I said yes? He said you are the first person I understand. That I can relate to, all your law. I said to myself, what's going on? Why has he been cast aside in this manner. Baby not personally but maybe the way things are going, the way policies are being driven. As well as young people being separated from their families. I look at those things and the human condition, that's what I'm interested in. No, you have said we are all poets. In what way do you believe that's true? We all have dreams. We all have to go to work, we all have duties and obligations. We all have things to, we're all busy. We all have loans and gadgets and laptops, most people. We are all caught up in this cycle of being busy and getting things done. Of course to survive. We lose that tender aspects of ourselves which is poetry. Which is taking a break, taking a few seconds and saying well, I'm alive. Guess what, I can reach out to someone why can listen to her voice today. I can listen to my child. That's where poetry comes from. I want to thank you for taking a few seconds with us, I've been speaking with the new US Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate. Thank you so much. Be sure to watch KPBS evening edition at five I KBS television and join us again tomorrow for discussions on midday edition here on KPBS FM. I Maureen Cavanaugh, thank you for listening.
The Library of Congress named Juan Felipe Herrera as the first Latino U.S. Poet Laureate this summer, and much of his work draws from his upbringing in San Diego.
The son of Mexican farm workers, Herrera grew up in Logan Heights, learned his first rhymes from his mother.
"My mother sang to me at a very early age," Herrera told KPBS Midday Edition on Monday. "She loved poetry, language and reading. She would always tell me stories."
In the mid-1970s, Herrera became the director of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park.
Herrera's poetry has focused on the plight of Mexican farm workers and immigrants. He wrote more than two dozen books and most recently was California’s Poet Laureate. His collection, "Half of the World in Light," won the National Book Critic's Circle award in 2008.
This fall, he’s releasing a new collection of poems titled "Notes on the Assemblage."
