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A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events. The term dates back to the appointment of Bernard André by Henry VII of England, though analogous appointments date back to ancient Greece and (in Padua) to Albertino Mussato.

Over a dozen national governments continue the tradition today.

Background[link]

In ancient Greece the laurel was sacred to the god Apollo, and was used to form a crown or wreath of honour for poets and heroes. This custom, first revived in Padua for Albertino Mussato,^[1] was followed by Petrarch's own crowning ceremony in the audience hall of the medieval senatorial palazzo on the Campidoglio on the 8th of April 1341.^[2] For lack of detailed knowledge on Roman precedents, these ceremonies took on the character of doctoral candidatures.^[3]

It has since become widespread, both in fact and as a metaphor. The word laureate or laureated thus came in English to signify eminence or association with glory (cf. Nobel laureate). Laureate letters were once the dispatches announcing a victory. The term laureate became associated with degrees awarded by European universities (the term baccalaureate for the degree of bachelor reflects this idea). As a royal degree in rhetoric, poet laureate was awarded at European universities in the Middle Ages. The term might also refer to the holder of such a degree, which recognized skill in rhetoric, grammar and language.

Poets Laureate by country[link]

Canada[link]

The Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate is appointed as an officer of the Library of Parliament. The position alternates between an English and French speaking laureate each term. Candidates must be able to write in both English and French, must have a substantial publication history (including poetry) displaying literary excellence and must have written work reflecting Canada, among other criteria.

The first ever Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate was awarded to George Bowering in 2002. In 2004, the title was transferred to Pauline Michel and in 2006 to John Steffler. His term ended on December 3, 2008 and Pierre DesRuisseaux was named the new laureate on April 28, 2009. In December, 2011, Fred Wah was named Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada.

Dominican Republic[link]

Poets Laureate of Dominican Republic include: Pedro Mir (1984).

Ethiopia[link]

Poets Laureate of Ethiopia include: Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin.

Germany[link]

Poets Laureate of Nazi Germany include: Hanns Johst from 1935 to 1945.

India[link]

Sripada Krishnamurty Sastry was the first poet laureate of Andhra Pradesh, India.

Tamil Nadu

Kannadasan was the poet laureate of Tamil Nadu at the time of his death.

Ireland[link]

The title Saoi, equivalent to Poet Laureate in Ireland but including artists and writers distinguished in other aspects of literature, may be held by up to 7 members of Aosdana at any given time. Holders include: dramatist Brian Friel and poet Seamus Heaney.

Netherlands[link]

The unofficial Poet Laureate of Netherlands is currently: Ramsey Nasr as Dichter des Vaderlands (Poet of the Fatherland). Gerrit Komrij was the first Dichter des Vaderlands. The title isn't officially designated but was created by Dutch media.^{[citation needed]}

New Zealand[link]

New Zealand has only had an official poet laureate for a few years. Originally sponsored by Te Mata vineyards and known as the Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate, the award is now administered by the National Library of New Zealand and the holder is officially called New Zealand Poet Laureate. The post is held for two years. Unlike the butt of sack traditionally offered to English poets laureate, New Zealand offers a Tokotoko, which is a carved wooden ceremonial orator's staff.

The first holder of the title was Bill Manhire who held the post of Poet Laureate from 1998–99. Other former Poets Laureate include, Hone Tuwhare (2000–01), Elizabeth Smither (2002–03), Brian Turner (2004–05), Jenny Bornholdt (2006–07), Michele Leggott (2008–09) and Cilla McQueen (2009–11). The current poet laureate is Ian Wedde (2011–2013).^[4][5]

Nigeria[link]

Poets Laureate of Nigeria include: Obo Aba Hisanjani.^{[citation needed]}

Saint Lucia[link]

Poets Laureate of Saint Lucia include: Derek Walcott.^{[citation needed]}

United Kingdom[link]

From the more general use of the term "poet laureate" arose its restriction in England to an official office of Poet Laureate, attached to the royal household. King James I essentially created the position as it is known today for Ben Jonson in 1617, although Jonson's appointment does not seem to have been made formally. The office was a development from the practice in earlier times when minstrels and versifiers formed part of the king's retinue. Richard Cœur-de-Lion had a versificator regis (English: king's poet), Gulielmus Peregrinus (William the Pilgrim), and Henry III had a versificator named Master Henry. In the fifteenth century, John Kay, a versifier, described himself as Edward IV's "humble poet laureate".

No single authentic definitive record exists of the office of Poet Laureate of England. According to Wharton,^{[citation needed]} King Henry I paid 10 shillings a year to a versificator regis. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400) was called Poet Laureate, being granted in 1389 an annual allowance of wine. W. Hamilton describes Chaucer, Gower, Kay, Andrew Bernard, John Skelton, Robert Whittington, Richard Edwards and Samuel Daniel as "volunteer Laureates".

John Skelton studied at the University of Oxford in the early 1480s and was advanced to the degree of "poet laureate" in 1488, when he joined the court of King Henry VII to tutor the future Henry VIII. The title of laureate was also conferred on him by the University of Louvain in 1492 and by the University of Cambridge in 1492–3.^{[citation needed]} He soon became famous for his rhetoric, satire and translations and was held in high esteem by the printer William Caxton, who wrote, in the preface to The Boke of Eneydos compyled by Vargyle (Modern English: The Book of the Aeneid, compiled by Virgil) (1490):

But I pray mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate in the unyversite of Oxenforde, to oversee and correct this sayd booke.

The title of Poet Laureate, as a royal office, was first conferred by letters patent on John Dryden in 1670, two years after Davenant's death. The post then became a regular institution. Dryden's successor Shadwell originated annual birthday and New Year odes. The poet laureate became responsible for writing and presenting official verses to commemorate both personal occasions, such as the monarch's birthday or royal births and marriages, and public occasions, such as coronations and military victories. His activity in this respect has varied according to circumstances, and the custom ceased to be obligatory after Pye's death. The office fell into some contempt before Southey, but took on a new lustre from his personal distinction and that of Wordsworth and Tennyson. Wordsworth stipulated, before accepting the honour, that no formal effusions from him should be considered a necessity; but Tennyson was generally happy in his numerous poems of this class.

On Tennyson's death there was a considerable feeling that no possible successor was acceptable, William Morris and Swinburne being hardly suitable as court poets. Eventually, however, the undesirability of breaking with tradition for temporary reasons, and thus severing the one official link between literature and the state, prevailed over the protests against allowing anyone of inferior genius to follow Tennyson. It may be noted that abolition had been similarly advocated when Warton and Wordsworth died. Edward Gibbon had condemned the position's artificial approach to poetry:

From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been false and venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish twice a year a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence, of the sovereign. I speak the more freely, as the best time for abolishing this ridiculous custom is while the prince is a man of virtue and the poet a man of genius.

— Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Chapter LXX (footnote)

The salary has varied, but traditionally includes some alcohol. Ben Jonson first received a pension of 100 marks, and later an annual "terse of Canary wine". Dryden had a pension of £300 and a butt of Canary wine. Pye received £27 instead of the wine. Tennyson drew £72 a year from the Lord Chamberlain's department, and £27 from the Lord Steward's "in lieu of the butt of sack".

The present British Poet Laureate is Carol Ann Duffy, appointed poet laureate in May 2009.

Scotland

The Edinburgh Makar was traditionally seen as the unpaid equivalent of a poet laureate, tasked with representing and promoting poetry in Scotland. Since 2004, the Scottish Parliament has appointed an official Scots Makar, from the Makars of the various cities. On 16 February 2004, Professor Edwin Morgan was appointed to both the Edinburgh post and the national role. On his death he was succeeded (in January 2011) by Liz Lochhead.^[6]

Wales

Wales has had a long tradition of poets and bards under royal patronage, with extant writing from mediæval royal poets and earlier. An office of National Poet for Wales was established in April 2005. The first holder, Gwyneth Lewis, was followed by Gwyn Thomas

United States of America[link]

The United States Library of Congress has since 1937 appointed an official Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress until 1984. An Act of Congress changed the name of the position in 1985 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. A number of the American states' legislatures have created official government positions which are occupied by Poets Laureate who are prominent either locally, nationally, or sometimes both.

Laureates receive a US$35,000 stipend and are given the responsibility of overseeing an ongoing series of poetry readings and lectures at the library, and a charge to promote poetry. No other duties are specified, and laureates are not required to compose for government events or in praise of government officials. However, after the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, the Poet Laureate then in office, Billy Collins, was asked to write a poem to be read in front of a special joint session of Congress. Collins wrote "The Names" which he read on September 6, 2002, which is available in streaming audio and video.^[7] When the $35,000 stipend was originally instituted, the amount was quite large and was intended to allow the poet laureate to abandon worries about earning a living and devote his or her time entirely to writing poetry. That amount has remained the same over the years, so the intent of making it a nice living for a poet is no longer being fulfilled. Now it functions as a bonus for a poet who usually is teaching at a university and earns the bulk of his or her living that way.

U.S. Poets Laureate: Philip Levine was named the 18th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the United States.^[8] Levine will succeed W.S. Merwin, who was the country's seventeenth Poet Laureate. Former Poets: Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Karl Shapiro, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wilbur, Joseph Brodsky, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Hass, Donald Hall, Robert Pinsky (three terms), Mark Strand, Audre Lorde and Maxine Kumin, among others.

District of Columbia

Minnesota

The State of Minnesota has appointed a Poet Laureate since 2007. The first appointee to the position was Robert Bly. In 2011, Bly was succeeded by Joyce Sutphen.

Utah

The state of Utah has appointed a Poet Laureate since 1997. The first Poet Laureate was David Lee who was appointed from January 24, 1997 to December 2002. Followed by Kenneth W. Brewer from January 24, 2003 to March 15, 2006. The third Poet Laureate was Katharine Coles from October 27, 2006 to May, 2012. Currently the Utah Poet Laureate is Lance Larsen, appointed May 3rd by Governor Gary Herbert.

Virginia

The commonwealth of Virginia has appointed a Poet Laureate since December 18, 1936. The first Poet Laureate was Carter Warner Wormeley; he was appointed for life. The appointments made from 1942 until 1992 were for one year at a time, many were for more than one term. In 1992, the appointment was increased to a two-year term, and beginning in 1998 the appointments were made from list of nominees presented by the Poetry Society of Virginia; which was established at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1923.^[9]

Colorado

The State of Colorado appointed one of the most widely known Poets Laureate of the late 20th century, singer/songwriter John Denver. ^[10]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Poet Laureate of Canada
• Map of Canadian Poets Laureate
• Poets Laureate of South Africa
• List of U.S. Poets Laureate
• Poets Laureate for the Commonwealth (state) of VIRGINIA, United States of America via The Poetry Society of Virginia
• Poets Laureate for the Commonwealth (state) of VIRGINIA, United States of America via The Library of Congress, Washington DC
• Poet Laureate of Winona, Minnesota (2009 - )

Ted Kooser (born 25 April 1939) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.^[1]

Biography[link]

Life[link]

Born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939, Kooser earned a BS at Iowa State University in 1962 and the MA at the University of Nebraska in 1968. He is the author of twelve collections of poetry. He is former vice-president of Lincoln Benefit Life, an insurance company, and lives on land near the village of Garland, Nebraska. He owned a book publishing company, Windflower. He teaches as a Visiting Professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is married to Kathleen Rutledge, former editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

Career[link]

On August 12, 2004, he was named Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Librarian of Congress to serve a term from October 2004 through May 2005. In April 2005, Ted Kooser was appointed to serve a second term as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. During that same week Kooser received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book "Delights and Shadows" (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).

Kooser lives in Garland, Nebraska, and much of his work focuses on the Great Plains. Like Wallace Stevens, Kooser spent much of his working years as an executive in the insurance industry, although Kooser sardonically noted in an interview with the Washington Post that Stevens had far more time to write at work than he ever did. Kooser has won two NEA Literary Fellowships (in 1976 and 1984), the Pushcart Prize, the Nebraska Book Awards for Poetry (2001) and Nonfiction (2004), the Stanley Kunitz Prize (1984), the James Boatwright Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (2005).

He hosts the newspaper project "American Life in Poetry."^[2]

Bibliography[link]

• Official Entry Blank. (1969).
• Grass County. (1971).
• Twenty Poems. (1973).
• A Local Habitation and a Name. (1974).
• Not Coming to Be Barked At. (1976).
• Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems. (1980).
  • includes Abandoned Farmhouse
• One World at a Time. (1985).
• The Blizzard Voices. (1986).
• Weather Central. (1994).
• A Book of Things. (1995).
• Riding with Colonel Carter. (1999).
• Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison. (2001).
• Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry. (with Jim Harrison) (Copper Canyon Press, 2003).
• Delights and Shadows. (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).
• Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps. (2004).
• Flying At Night : Poems 1965-1985. (2005).
• Lights on a Ground of Darkness: an evocation of place and time. (2005).
• The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice For Beginning Poets. (2005).
• Valentines. (2008).

contributor to: Letters to a Young Iowan, 2007, Ice Cube Press

References[link]

1. ^ "Poet Laureate Timeline: 2001-present". Library of congress. 2009. http://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate-2001-present.html. Retrieved 2009-01-01. 
2. ^ American Life in Poetry

External links[link]

• Official website
• Ted Kooser: Online Resources from the Library of Congress
• American Life in Poetry, Kooser's syndicated newspaper feature
• Author interview in Guernica Magazine (Guernicamag.com)
• Ted Kooser biographical summary
• Linton Weeks, Washington Post, "Poet Laureate's Prized Words", April 5, 2005, page C1
• A review of Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser.
• Fresh Air radio interview – 4 April 2005
• Television Profile of Ted Kooser - NET Television

Natasha Trethewey during book signing at the University of Michigan

Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966) is an American poet who won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection, Native Guard.^[1] She is currently the Poet Laureate of Mississippi.^[2]

Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi.^[3] She earned the A.B. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in poetry from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (1995).^[4] In May 2010, Hollins University awarded Trethewey with a Doctor of Letters honoris causa during the university's 168th Commencement Exercises. In December 2007, she received the same honor from Delta State University in her native Mississippi. She holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University.^[5]

Bibliography[link]

• Domestic Work. Graywolf Press. 2000. ISBN 978-1-55597-309-4.  (Poetry)
• Bellocq's Ophelia. Graywolf Press. 2002. ISBN 978-1-55597-359-9. ^[4] (Poetry)
• Native Guard. Houghton Mifflin. 2006. ISBN 978-0-618-87265-7.  (Poetry)
• Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. University of Georgia Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-8203-3381-6.  (Poetry, essays, and letters)

Awards[link]

• 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry^[6]
• 2004 Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation for residency at the Bellagio Study Center
• 2003 Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
• 2001, 2003,^[3] 2007 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prizes
• 2001, 2007 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry
• 2000 Bunting Fellowship for the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
• 1999 First Annual Cave Canem Poetry Prize for Domestic Work, selected by Rita Dove
• 1999 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts

References[link]

External links[link]

• Faculty bio at Emory
• "Pulitzer Prize Winner Trethewey Discusses Poetry Collection". PBS Online News Hour. April 25, 2007. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june07/trethewey_04-25.html. 
• Natasha Tretheway on Southern Spaces
• Trethewey reading from The Native Guard in February 2006: Blackbird: An Online Journal of Literature and the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Volume 5, No. 1 (Spring 2006)
• Trethewey interview with Daniel Cross Turner for Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature (Fall 2011) http://www.waccamawjournal.com/pages.html?x=324

Billy Collins
Collins at the Calabash Literary Festival in St. Elizabeth's, Jamaica, May 2010.
Born	(1941-03-22) 22 March 1941 (age 71) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Professor, Poet, Author, Anthologist
Nationality	American

Billy Collins (born William James Collins March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.^[1] He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004-2006.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Collins was born in New York City to William and Katherine Collins. Katherine Collins was a nurse who stopped working to raise the couple's only child. Mrs. Collins had the ability to recite verses on almost any subject, which she often did, and cultivated in her young son the love of words, both written and spoken. Billy Collins attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains and received a B.A. (English) from the College of the Holy Cross in 1963; he received his M.A. and Ph.D in English from the University of California, Riverside. His professors at Riverside included Victorian scholar and poet Robert Peters.^[2][3] In 1975 Collins founded The Mid Atlantic Review with his good friend and co-editor, Michael Shannon.^[4]

Career[link]

Collins in La Jolla, San Diego, 2008

Collins is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College in the Bronx, where he joined the faculty in 1968 and has taught for over thirty years. Additionally, he is a founding Advisory Board member of the CUNY Institute for Irish-American Studies at Lehman College. He also has taught and served as a visiting writer at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York as well as teaching workshops across the U.S. and in Ireland. Collins is a member of the faculty of SUNY Stonybrook Southampton College, where he teaches poetry workshops. Collins was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 2001 and held the title until 2003. Collins served as Poet Laureate for the State of New York from 2004 until 2006. Collins has been named Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Winter Park Institute in Winter Park, Florida, an affiliate of Rollins College. He is on the editorial board at The Alaska Quarterly Review, not actively involved since 2000.^[5][6] He is on the advisory board at the Southern Review, and is similarly named in other journals.

As U.S. Poet Laureate, Collins read his poem The Names at a special joint session of the United States Congress on September 6, 2002, held to remember the victims of the 9/11 attacks.^[7] Though, unlike their British counterparts, U.S. poets laureate are not asked or expected to write occasional poetry, Collins was asked by the Librarian of Congress to write a poem especially for that event. Collins initially refused to read "The Names" in public, though he has read it two times in public since 2002. He vows not to include it in any of his books, refusing to capitalize in any way on the 9/11 attacks. However, "The Names" was included in the The Poets Laureate Anthology, put out by the Library of Congress, for which Collins wrote the foreword. The only published version of "The Names," it contains a number of regrettable typographical errors. As Poet Laureate, Collins instituted the program Poetry 180 for high schools. Collins chose 180 poems for the program and the accompanying book, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry-- one for each day of the school year. Collins edited a second anthology, 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day to refresh the supply of available poems. The program is online, and poems are available there for no charge.^[8]

In 1997, Collins recorded The Best Cigarette, a collection of 34 of his poems, that would become a bestseller. In 2005, the CD was re-released under a Creative Commons license, allowing free, non-commercial distribution of the recording. He also recorded two of his poems for the audio versions of Garrison Keillor's collection Good Poems (2002). Collins has appeared on Keillor's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, numerous times, where he gained a portion of his large following. In 2005, Collins recorded Billy Collins Live: A Performance ^[9] in New York City. Collins was introduced by his friend, actor Bill Murray.

Billy Collins has been called "The most popular poet in America" by the New York Times.^[10] When he moved from the University of Pittsburgh Press to Random House, the advance he received shocked the poetry world — a six-figure sum for a three-book deal, virtually unheard of in poetry.^[11] The deal secured for Collins through his literary agent, Chris Calhoun of Sterling Lord Literistic, with the editor Daniel Menaker, remained the talk of the poetry world, and indeed the literary world, for quite some time.^[12]

Over the years, the U.S. magazine Poetry has awarded Collins several prizes in recognition of poems they publish. During the 1990s, Collins won five such prizes. The magazine also selected him as "Poet of the Year" in 1994. In 2005 Collins was the first annual recipient of its Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts and in 1993, from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

One of his most critically acclaimed works, "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" ^[13] has been added to the preserved works of the United States Native American literary registry as being deemed a culturally significant poem.

Awards and honors[link]

• 1983, Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts
• 1986, Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts
• 1991, National Poetry Series publication prize - winner, Questions About Angels
• 1992, New York Public Library 'Literary Lion'
• 1993, Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
• 1994, Poetry Magazine - Poet of the Year
• 1995, Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, Academy of American Poets - shortlist, The Art of Drowning
• 2001, American Irish Historical Society Cultural Award
• 2001–2003, US Poet Laureate
• 2004–2006, New York State Poet Laureate^[14]
• 2005, Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry

Poetry collections[link]

• Pokerface (1977)
• Video Poems (1980)
• The Apple That Astonished Paris. University of Arkansas Press. 1988. ISBN 978-1-55728-024-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=LcwWbWcOGQAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. ; University of Arkansas Press, 2006, ISBN 978-1-55728-823-3
• Questions About Angels (1991)
• The Art of Drowning University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-8229-5567-2
• Picnic, Lightning (1998)
• Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes (2000)
• Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. Random House. 2001. http://books.google.com/books?id=_uxrn_B6nQIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. ; reprint Random House, Inc., 2002, ISBN 978-0-375-75519-4
• Nine Horses. Random House, Inc.. 2002. ISBN 978-1-58836-278-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=6MYci63f-yoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• The Trouble with Poetry. 2005. http://books.google.com/books?id=dtMhdlM_q48C&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. ; reprint Random House, Inc., 2007, ISBN 978-0-375-75521-7
• She Was Just Seventeen (2006)
• Ballistics. 2008. ISBN 978-1-4000-6491-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=lTiSa7Oxvd8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• "Horoscopes for the Dead" (2011) ISBN 978-1-4000-6492-2

Editor[link]

• Billy Collins, ed. (2003). Poetry 180. Random House, Inc.. ISBN 978-0-8129-6887-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=ssxHjRNX9-QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• Billy Collins, ed. (2005). 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day. Random House, Inc.. ISBN 978-0-8129-7296-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=LBD3cfm2_dcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=billy+collins#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• Billy Collins, ed. (2010). Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. Illustrator David Sibley. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-15084-2. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Billy Collins

• Collins online resources at the Library of Congress
• Billy Collins profile at PoetryFoundation.org
• Billy Collins profile at poets.org
• George Plimpton (Fall 2001). "Billy Collins, The Art of Poetry No. 83". Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/482/the-art-of-poetry-no-83-billy-collins. 

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Juan Felipe Herrera, at the Lannan Center

Juan Felipe Herrera (born December 27, 1948 Fowler, California) is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist.

The only son of María de la Luz (Lucha) Quintana and Felipe Emilio Herrera, the three were campesinos living from crop to crop, and from tractor to trailer to tents on the roads of the San Joaquín Valley, Southern California and the Salinas Valley. Herrera's experiences as the child of migrant farmers have strongly shaped his work, such as the children's book Calling the Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award in 1997. Community and art has always been part of what has driven Herrera, beginning in the mid-seventies, when he was director of the Centro Cultural de la Raza, an occupied water tank in Balboa Park that had been converted into an arts space for the community.

Herrera’s publications include fourteen collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children with twenty-one books in total in the last decade. Herrera was awarded the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Half the World in Light.

Family[link]

Juan Felipe Herrera lives with his partner, Margarita Robles, a poet and performance artist, in Redlands, California. His children and grandchildren live in California, Oregon and New York. The author and artist Joaquín Ramón Herrera is his son.

Education[link]

Herrera received his B.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles, his Masters in Social Anthropology from Stanford University, and his Masters in Fine Arts, in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa.^[1]

Teaching[link]

After serving as chair of the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department at California State University, Fresno,^[2] in 2005, Herrera joined the Creative Writing Department at University of California, Riverside, as Tomás Rivera Endowed chair,^[3] and director of the Art and Barbara Culver Center for the Arts, a new multimedia space in downtown Riverside. In 1990 he was a distinguished teaching fellow at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1990.

Community Arts[link]

Juan Felipe has received grants to teach poetry, art and performance in several different settings, including community art galleries such as the Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, California, in 1983-85, develop community art and literature broadsides (1977–78) in San Diego, California, teach poetry in prisons (Soledad Correctional Facility, 1987–88). His current work focuses on working with community colleges and schools in the Riverside country and in Coachella Valley.

Awards and Fellowships[link]

• Americas Award
• 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Half the World in Light
• 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Award ^[4]
• 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship ^[5]
• Breadloaf Fellowship in Poetry
• California Arts Council grants (awarded four times)
• Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice
• Focal Award
• Ezra Jack Keats Award, for Calling the Doves
• Hungry Mind Award of Distinction
• IRA Teacher’s Choice
• Latino Hall of Fame Poetry Awards (twice awarded)
• Los Angeles Times Book Award Nomination
• National Endowment for the Arts Writers’ Fellowship Awards (twice awarded)
• New York Public Library Outstanding Book for High School Students Award
• Pura Belpré Honors Award
• Smithsonian Children’s Book of the Year Award
• Stanford Chicano Fellows Fellowship
• Texas Blue Bonnet Nomination
• UC Berkeley Regent’s Fellowship]]

Bibliography[link]

• Rebozos of Love. Tolteca Publications. 1974.
• Exiles of Desire. Arte Publico Press. University of Houston. 1985.
• Facegames. Dragon Cloud Press. 1987.
• Akrílica. Alcatraz Editions. 1989.
• Memoria(s) from an Exile's Notebook of the Future. Santa Monica College Press. 1993. [Poetry Chapbook]
• The Roots of a Thousand Embraces: Dialogues. Manic D. Press. San Francisco. 1994.
• Night Train to Tuxtla: New Stories and Poems. University of Arizona. 1994.
• Calling the Doves / Canto a Las Palomas. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press. ISBN 978-0-89239-166-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=88m3WJEJA9AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Juan+inauthor:Felipe+inauthor:Herrera&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false.  [Bilingual children's story]. Fall 1995
• Love After the Riots. Curbstone Press. Willimantic, NY. 1996
• Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, Pa. Spring 1997.
• Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream. University of Arizona Press. 1999.
• Loteria Cards & Fortune Poems. City Lights Publishers. SF. Fall, 1999.
• CrashBoomLove: A Novel in Verse. University of New Mexico. Fall 1999. ISBN 978-0-8263-2114-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=ScxJrZieXm4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Juan+inauthor:Felipe+inauthor:Herrera&cd=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• The Upside Down Boy/El Nino de Cabeza. Children's Book Press, SF. 2000.
• Thunderweavers. University of Az. Tucson. 2000.
• Giraffe on Fire. Poems. Univ. Az. Press. Tucson. 2001.
• Grandma & Me at the Flea / Los Meros Meros Remateros. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Books Press. 2002. ISBN 978-0-89239-171-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=uXgosJDEMfUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Juan+inauthor:Felipe+inauthor:Herrera&cd=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 2002.
• Super Cilantro Girl / La Superniña del Cilantro. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-89239-187-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=UPlb6OBoobMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Juan+inauthor:Felipe+inauthor:Herrera&cd=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Coralito's Bay / La Bahia de Coralito. Monterey National Marine Sanctuary. Monterey. 2004
• Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Harper Collins, Joanna Cotler Books /Tempest. New York. 2005. ISBN 978-0-06-057984-5
• Downtown Boy. Scholastic Press. Scholastic. New York. 2005.
• 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross The Border, City Lights, 2007, ISBN 978-0-87286-462-7
• Undocuments 1971-2007. City Lights Publishers. San Francisco. 2007.
• Half the World in Light. University of Arizona Press. 2008.

Film and Stage[link]

Herrera produced “The Twin Tower Songs,” a San Joaquin Valley performance memorial on the September 11, 2001 attacks and writes (poetry sequences) for the PBS television series “American Family.” His recent musical, The Upside Down Boy, was well received in New York City, produced by Making Books Sing, libretto by Barbara Zinn Krieger. Lyrics by Juan Felipe Herrera and Music by Cristian Amigo. Mr. Herrera is a board member of the Before Columbus American Book Awards Foundation and the California Council for the Humanities.

Theater[link]

Juan Felipe Herrera founded a number of performance ensemble during the last three decades: Teatro Tolteca (UCLA, 1971 – a choreopoem theatre utilizing jazz, spoken-word and movement), TROKA ( Bay Area, 1983, a percussion/spoken word ensemble, Teatro Zapata, (Fresno, Ca., 1990 – a student community theatre), Manikrudo: Raw Essence ( Fresno, Ca., 1993, a culturally diverse, performance art ensemble and workshop), Teatro Ambulante de Salud/The Traveling Health Theatre (2003, Fresno, Ca. for migrant communities in the San Joaquin Valley) and Verbal Coliseum – A Spoken Word Ensemble (UC Riverside, 2006), “Prison Journal,” an experimental play was featured at the Univ. of Iowa Playwright’s Festival, 1990. Latin@ Theatre/Movement & Improv training: Luis Valdez/Teatro Campesino, Enrique Buenaventura, Rodrigo Duarte-Clark, Olivia Chumacero, Jorge Huerta, James Donlon.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Biography at Harper Collins
• Interview with Herrera on Words on a Wire
• Biography at Scholastic
• "An Interview with Juan Felipe Herrera", Parents Choice
• Juan Felipe Herrera Nov. 2007, footage of Juan’s reading at the Ruskin Arts Center in Los Angeles, Nov. 2007
• STEPHEN BURT (August 10, 2008). "‘Punk Half Panther’". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Burt2-t.html.