Top of page

The Poet Laureate Meets the Librarian of Congress

Share this post:

Here’s a fun fact: the current Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, Juan Felipe Herrera, is in the unusual position of pre-dating our current Librarian of Congress! Herrera was appointed by the previous Librarian, James H. Billington, and he was re-appointed by acting Librarian David Mao back in April—five months before the swearing-in of Dr. Carla Hayden. In fact, Dr. Hayden didn’t have the opportunity to meet with the Laureate until he passed through the capital in late October.

I was happy to be in the room when Juan Felipe and Dr. Hayden did finally shake hands and sit down together, in the Librarian’s Office. And when Juan Felipe, in his customary way, announced he had written a poem for the occasion, I thought: I should film this! Here is a video of the Laureate reading his poem to the Librarian, entitled “Each Book is a Story”:


The Poet Laureate wrote the poem on the cardboard insert for his nice new dress shirt—here is a picture of the original version:

Librarian Poem

The final version, slightly revised by Juan Felipe, is as follows:

Capture

Each Poet Laureate brings different strengths to the position, finds different ways to use the position to promote poetry. One of Juan Felipe’s greatest strengths is his ability to write an occasional poem. It was only fitting that he do so for Dr. Hayden, to honor their meeting but in a larger sense to mark the historic and inspiring moment of her appointment.

Comments (4)

  1. How lovely the sentiments of Juan Felipe to Dr. Hayden in his poem, “Each Book is a Story.” I did enjoy the handwritten version pictured in this article and his reading of it which included the phrase, “giving books of courageous love” in the video excerpt.

  2. What a momentous occasion. So important for humanity, a poet and a librarian.

  3. This is a picture/word poem. excellant.

  4. Such a warmhearted gesture. A lovely poem too! Thank you for sharing!

Comments are closed.