Juan Felipe Herrera

Poetry, as odd as it is, and as hard to figure out as it is, many times, it's almost something that we're used to. It's kind of like a dream language that we had centuries ago, so that when we speak poetically or write a poem about what's going on, a real difficult issue that's facing our communities, people listen.

All voices are important, and yet it seems that people of color have a lot to say, particularly if you look through the poetry of young people - a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about immigration and security issues, you name it - big questions.

The banner of the project is 'Casa de Colores.' Under that banner, I'm going to invite people to do a lot of good things. Perhaps working in groups, working on poetry.

My mother was a washerwoman - or a woman that cleaned houses in Texas... in Plano, Texas - who always loved poetry and always loved stories.

San Diego shaped me a lot. The visual landscapes, the emotional panoramas, the teachers and mentors I had from the third grade through San Diego High - it's all a big part of the poetry fountain that I continue to drink from.

I gave my voice to poetry.

Poetry is a call to action, and it also is action.

Poetry can tell us about what's going on in our lives - not only our personal but our social and political lives.

Let's detox our cluttered academic brain. That's what the poet does. People call it daydreaming, detoxing our minds and taking care of that clutter. It's being able to let in call letters from the poetry universe.

I tell my workshop students, 'I want you to think of yourselves as artists. Then, when you're writing, you're painting, you're crafting, you're making a design, you're sculpting, you're creating choreography, sound, a sound script.'

I remember looking at James Joyce's journals. It was just amazing - it looked like ants had written on the page. So much writing on one page, every corner of the page was filled. Some of the lines were underlined in yellow or blue or red. A lot of color, intense writing.

First grade was - I spoke only Spanish, and second grade - probably a bit more English. And by the time I hit third grade, I was learning, of course, much, much more English.

If I can only be known as one thing, then, well, I guess it would be poet and performer and teacher.

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__ who forms our poetics.