Split This Rock Congratulates Juan Felipe Herrera, 21st Poet Laureate of the United States
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 11, 2015
CONTACT: Sarah Browning, browning@splitthisrock.org, (202) 787-5210
Split This Rock Congratulates Juan Felipe Herrera, 21st Poet Laureate of the United States, First Latino Appointed
Herrera to kick off Split This Rock Poetry Festival at a special event at the Library of Congress, April 13, 2016
Washington, DC – Split This Rock, the national social justice poetry organization, celebrates the announcement of Juan Felipe Herrera as Poet Laureate of the United States. Herrera had previously been scheduled to participate in Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2016; he will now kick off the festival with a special event at the Library of Congress, Wednesday, April 13, 2016.
Split This Rock Board Chair Dan Vera says, “Juan Felipe Herrera is a fabulous choice, a brilliant and invigorating choice. Herrera’s appointment would make the man responsible for the Poet Laureate position – who tirelessly introduced legislation every year for 22 years to establish the position – Hawaii's former Senator Spark Matsunaga, very happy. The position Matsunaga championed is finally beginning to represent the diversity of this country we all share.”
“When we began curating Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2016,” said Split This Rock Executive Director Sarah Browning, “Juan Felipe Herrera – son of migrant farm workers, activist of many years, poet of wildness and beauty – was one of our first choices to feature. We are tremendously excited that he will now be part of this gathering of socially engaged poets from his new position as a national spokesperson for poetry.”
Details of the special event will be announced at a later date. More information on Split This Rock and Split This Rock Poetry Festival is available at www.SplitThisRock.org.
About Split This Rock: Founded in 2008, Split This Rock calls poets to the center of public life and cultivates, teaches, and celebrates poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes personal and social change. Core programs are a biennial national poetry festival, city-wide youth programming, contests, readings, workshops, campaigns for social change, and an online index of social justice poems.