Juan Felipe Herrera is the Poet Laureate of California. Author of over 20 books, he has won awards from Guggenheim, PEN USA, PEN American Center, the Smithsonian, and the National Book Critics Circle, among others. He lives with his partner, poet and performance artist Margarita Robles, in Redlands, California, and teaches at the University of California, Riverside.

“Your friends, and your associates, and the people around you, and the environment that you live in, and the speakers around you — the speakers around you — and the communicators around you, are the poetry makers.
If your mother tells you stories, she is a poetry maker.
If your father says stories, he is a poetry maker.
If your grandma tells you stories, she is a poetry maker.
And that’s who forms our poetics.” 

— Juan Felipe Herrera