Sometimes it's like that. I go, 'You know what? I'm going to just change scales. I'm going to even change instruments. And I'm going to go into the chromatics of the Spanish language,' and I do. You know, the poem is totally different. It's like a lunar voice versus a day voice, a solar voice.

Juan Felipe Herrera

Diversity really means becoming complete as human beings - all of us. We learn from each other. If you're missing on that stage, we learn less. We all need to be on that stage.

Juan Felipe Herrera

A pen is different from the pad, the key, moving your fingers across a screen. I like both. I like to work on sketchbooks, big old white sketch paper. I like how that feels, and I like to put different media on it. Then there's the phone, smartphone, iPad: It's the new page, and it's not the same page anymore.

Juan Felipe Herrera

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera

I gave my voice to poetry.

Juan Felipe Herrera

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

Juan Felipe Herrera

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera

I'm usually writing in English, and then I'll get the hankering to change channels. And usually I'll do that when I want to try a whole new set of keys, like musical keys.

Juan Felipe Herrera

In my writing, I want to address all communities, you know. I've spent many years talking about Chicano culture, Chicano history, and at the same time, I've also been in many communities and presented my work in many communities, in many classrooms, and that's where my vision is and my delight is and my heart is.

Juan Felipe Herrera

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera

I know I'm representing the Library of Congress, all the people of the United States and, of course, the Latinos and Latinas as well.

Juan Felipe Herrera

My mother was a great storyteller and a great historian in her own way. She only made it to third grade. She came from Mexico City at the tail end of the Mexican Revolution and that kind of turmoil and chaos and frenzy and also excitement.

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.

Juan Felipe Herrera

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

Juan Felipe Herrera

My grandmother and my mom and my aunt Aurelia, my grandmother Juanita, my mom Lucia - we lived on the outskirts of a barrio in Mexico City called Tepito, and Tepito for many, many decades was the largest barrio in Mexico and perhaps even Latin America.

Juan Felipe Herrera

I'm a political poet - let us say a 'human' poet, a poet that's concerned with the plight of people who suffer. If words can be of assistance, then that's what I'm going to use.

Juan Felipe Herrera

As a boy, I felt ashamed of being Mexican. I'd say I was Hawaiian.

Juan Felipe Herrera

We speak about understanding each other, having those conversations nationwide - culturally, historically - and yet there's a lot of gaps. So I want to assist with closing the gap of knowing about and hearing about our Latino communities in terms of literature, in terms of writing.

Juan Felipe Herrera

I like marketplaces. I like train stations; I like being in trains. I like airports. I like walking down the street with a pen in my hand, writing, writing, writing.

Juan Felipe Herrera

Marvin Bell always looked very closely at how lines could break, how you could put over one line into the second line. How you could stop the line two or three times within the line: You could make it stop.

Juan Felipe Herrera