Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, by Juan Felipe Herrera

For nearly four decades, Juan Felipe Herrera has documented his experience as a Chicano in the United States and Latin America through stunning, memorable poetry that is both personal and universal in its impact, themes, and approach. Now, in this unprecedented collection, we encounter the trajectory of this highly innovative and original writer, bringing into view the full scope and. singular vision of this major American poet.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS' CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY AND THE PEN / BEYOND MARGINS AWARD

"Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fuelled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed." New York Times

"In Half of the World in Light, the import of Juan Felipe Herrera's nearly forty years of work is on full display, and there is no adjective to describe the immensity of it. Reinventing himself from book to book and even poem to poem, he is a virtuoso of language and society." American Poet

"Juan Felipe Herrera casts the Chicano experience of the last four decades into the vanguard of American letters. The poems gathered here are reflections of fertility, revival songs steering us toward freedom. Few poets in the history of this America have been so unshackled as to reinvent the art form at the turn of every page." Matthew Shenoda, author of Somewhere Else