Until last year, Juan Felipe Herrera was our country's poet laureate. You can find a brief biography of him here. The last year I taught, I remember being so excited about a new book for older students that was published: Laughing Out Loud, I Fly: Poems In English and Spanish. It was a wonderful addition to my poetry collection about growing up in a very different environment from most of my own students.
Recently, thanks to Candlewick Press, I received an advanced copy of Herrera's most recent book, this time for varied ages, perhaps kids especially, but I love it, too, all about writing poetry, in this crazy and mixed-up world of ours. Oh, how I wish I was still teaching. It's a "crazy and mixed-up" poetry how-to from him, guaranteed to make everyone smile and take off! Starting with a quote from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky itself:
"And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!"
Herrera hurries into the pages with "The Incredible Chapter Uno", and introducing us readers to "Jabberwalking in a Fast, Fast World!"
Herrera asks the reader (writer) often to rush into things without much thought, with some play on words like "blue-cheesy", not "cheesy". He writes that "You do not have to know where you are going! Or what you are saying" Art from Herrera's words, by him, too, is fun, clever, and (my word) doodles of extraordinary detail. With the words, it's exhilarating to know one can take off with a notebook and pen or pencil and catch a poem, or a sketch of what one sees or what one thinks.