Senegal Taxi by Juan Felipe Herrera
"I wish I could find the words to tell you the story of our village after you were killed." So begins Senegal Taxi, the new work by one of contemporary poetry's most vibrant voices, Juan Felipe Herrera. Known for his activism and writings that bring attention to oppression and injustice, Herrera turns to stories of genocide and hope in Sudan. Senegal Taxi offers the voices of three children escaping the horrors of war in Africa.
Unflinching in its honesty, brutality, and beauty, the collection fiercely addresses conflict and childhood, inviting readers to engage in complex and often challenging issues. Senegal Taxi weaves together verse, dialogue, and visual art created by Herrera specifically for the book. Stylistically genre-leaping, these many layers are part of the collection's innovation. Phantom-like televisions, mud drawings, witness testimonies, insects, and weaponry are all storytellers that join the siblings for a theatrical crescendo. Each poem is told from a different point of view, which Herrera calls "mud drawings," referring to the evocative symbols of hope the children create as they hide in a cave on their way to Senegal, where they plan to catch a boat to the United States.
This collection signals a poignant shift for Herrera as he continues to use his craft to focus attention on global concerns. In so doing, he offers an acknowledgment that the suffering of some is the suffering of all.
Unflinching in its honesty, brutality, and beauty, the collection fiercely addresses conflict and childhood, inviting readers to engage in complex and often challenging issues. Senegal Taxi weaves together verse, dialogue, and visual art created by Herrera specifically for the book. Stylistically genre-leaping, these many layers are part of the collection's innovation. Phantom-like televisions, mud drawings, witness testimonies, insects, and weaponry are all storytellers that join the siblings for a theatrical crescendo. Each poem is told from a different point of view, which Herrera calls "mud drawings," referring to the evocative symbols of hope the children create as they hide in a cave on their way to Senegal, where they plan to catch a boat to the United States.
This collection signals a poignant shift for Herrera as he continues to use his craft to focus attention on global concerns. In so doing, he offers an acknowledgment that the suffering of some is the suffering of all.
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.
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 | 9780816530151 |
| ISBN 10 | 0816530157 |
| Title | Senegal Taxi |
| Author | Juan Herrera |
| Series | Camino Del Sol |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University of Arizona Press |
| Year published | 2013-03-30 |
| Number of pages | 128 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |