The Roots of A Thousand Embraces by Juan Felipe Herrera

The Roots of A Thousand Embraces by Juan Felipe Herrera

Juan Felipe Hererra's writing fuses wide-ranging experimentalism with reflections on Mexican-American identity . . .--The New York Times

In forty cantos, the poet explores the metaphysical relationship between Frida Kahlo, her art, her broken body, and cross-border consciousness. First published in 1994, this early work--his sixth book--reveals a deep sense of longing for all to be made whole again in spite of fractures--physical, metaphorical, cultural--bestowed by the world.

From Prologue: A Second Body:

Think on the time it takes a scar to heal,

a river to rise -- an old woman to regain the tumbling
powers of her busted arms -- a young woman (calling
herself Frida) to re-structure her shattered vertebrae, to
be caught up with a body-cast, a second body which she
inhabits -- for the rest of her life; this is precious to me,
that is all.

She painted herself somewhere in-between Mexico and
the United States -- in the open space of the jaws; between
the mandibles of the jaguar and the nuclear turbine.

It is the healing of this metaphysical fracture too (which
may invoke further breakage) that concerns me.

Juan Felipe Herrera was raised in a farm-working family in the San Joaquin Valley. A graduate of UCLA, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Stanford University, he has written numerous books. Herrera's awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN USA Award. Former Poet Laureate of California and now United States Poet Laureate, he lives in Fresno.

After serving as chair of the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department at California State University-Fresno, in 2005 Juan Felipe Herrera joined the Creative Writing Department at the University of California-Riverside, as Tomas Rivera Endowed Chair and director of the Art and Barbara Culver Center for the Arts, a new multimedia space in downtown Riverside. In 1990 he was a teaching fellow with the Distinction of Excellence at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Also, he has taught at the New College of San Francisco and Stanford University.
During the last three decades, Juan Felipe has received numerous awards and fellowships, such as two National Endowment for the Arts Writers' Fellowships, four California Arts Council grants, the UC Berkeley Regents' Fellowship, the Breadloaf Fellowship in Poetry, and the Stanford Chicano Fellows Fellowship. He has given lectures, workshops, readings, and performances of his work and writing throughout the nation.

Juan Felipe's publications in the last decade include fourteen collections of poetry, prose, writing and plays, short stories, young adult novels, and picture books for children, with twenty-one books in total. For his literary endeavors, Juan Felipe has garnered the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the Hungry Mind Award of Distinction, the Americas Award, the Focal Award, the Pura Belpre Honors Award, the Smithsonian Children's Book of the Year, the Cooperative Children's Book Center Choice, the IRA Teacher's Choice, the Los Angeles Times Book Award nomination, the Texas Blue Bonnet nomination, the New York Public Library outstanding book for high school students, the National Tomas Rivera Mexican American Award, and two Latino Hall of Fame Poetry awards.

Juan Felipe is also an actor, with appearances on film and stage. He recently produced The Twin Tower Songs, a San Joaquin Valley performance memorial on the September 11th tragedy, and he writes poetry sequences for the PBS television series American Family. His 2004 musical, The Upside Down Boy, was well received in New York City (attended by 9,000 K-6 students). It was produced by Making Books Sing, with libretto by Barbara Zinn Krieger, lyrics by Juan Felipe Herrera, and music by Cristian Amigo. More recently, he wrote the libretto and lyrics for Salsalandia, a commission for the La Jolla Playhouse.

Juan Felipe is a board member of the Before Columbus American Book Awards Foundation. He received his B.A. in social anthropology from the University of California at Los Angeles, his M.A. in social anthropology from Stanford, and his M.F.A. in creative writing from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. Juan Felipe often travels and performs with his partner, Margarita Robles, a poet and performance artist.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781933149967
ISBN 10	1933149965
Title	The Roots of A Thousand Embraces
Author	Juan Felipe Herrera
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Manic D Press,U.S.
Year published	2016-05-12
Number of pages	64
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.