The following post was written by Rob Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center.
Though our spring season is officially over, much is still going on at the Poetry and Literature Center. We are looking forward to announcing the next Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in a couple of weeks—to that end, last week we held our “Laureate Orientation” with our incoming Laureate (more on that after the announcement). But there’s still news about Juan Felipe Herrera’s second-term projects to report!
First, I’m delighted to let you know about the PBS NewsHour segment on Juan Felipe’s “Wordstreet Champions and Brave Builders of the Dream” program. The segment, more than seven minutes long, looks at all sides of the program and highlights both its impact and its potential. I couldn’t have been more impressed by the Chicago Public Schools teachers and high school students highlighted, or more thankful to LaTanya McDade, the chief officer in the CPS Office of Teaching and Learning—she’s featured toward the end of the segment.
Speaking of being thankful, I’d like to thank all the participating teachers and librarians, and their groups of second- and third-grade students they worked with, for making “The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon” take such breathtaking twists and turns! Juan Felipe and genius artist Juana Medina used the responses they received to supercharge the bilingual illustrated poem, and I’m excited to announce that Chapter 5 continues to expand the story line. It’s just been posted, so go check it out—and come back to the website on June 8th to the see the “Epilogue.”
Finally, though I am excited to move in a new direction with our incoming Poet Laureate, I sure will miss Juan Felipe! I’ve come to admire him more and more for his generosity, his honesty, his humility, his passion, and his commitment—to poetry and to all the people he’s met these past two years. Juan Felipe has also imbued the office with his wildly-imaginative-and-ambitious-as-all-get-out approach to everything. Why not have two first-term projects? Why not perform with two wonderful twelve-year-olds at the first-term closing event, or the Fresno State Choir at the following year’s event? Why not write a poem for the new Librarian of Congress, along with all sorts of other occasional poems to address pressing issues in our country—and speak to victims on both sides of our political divide?
For this, and for a million other reasons, I have to say: thank you dear dear Juan Felipe. May you continue to exemplify what poets and poetry can do to lift us all up, comfort us and bolster us, remind of our commonalities and bring joy and play to our lives.