Juan Felipe Herrera is the US Poet Laureate and was inspired by the fire-speakers of the early Chicano Movement and by heavy exposure to various poetry, jazz, and blues performance streams. His published works include 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007; Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream; Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of the Americas; Thunderweavers / Tejedoras de rayos; Laughing Out Loud, I Fly, a Pura Belpr� Honor Book; Am�ricas Award winners CrashBoomLove and Cinnamon Girl; Calling the Doves / El canto de las palomas, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; and The Upside Down Boy / El ni�o de cabeza, which was adapted into a musical. He has received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship, and previously served as California Poet Laureate. He has taught at both California State University, Fresno, and University of California, Riverside, and held the Tom�s Rivera Endowed Chair in Creative Writing. He lives in Fresno, California.
