Juan Felipe Herrera

If they don’t get you while you are making tortillas

they’ll get you while you are making sopaipillas

if your are just thinking about the bank and the coin

they’ll get you when you think you’re just gettin’ goin’

if they don’t get you while you are struttin’ down Broadway

they’ll  get you when you slam your breaks in San José

if they don’t get you wearing your Yosemite climbing gear

they get you when you are stepping up into your career

if they don’t get you while you are beggin’ for a dime

they’ll get you crawling up toward your first crime

if they don’t get you after you gave away every little thing

they just won’t get you cuz’ —

they already got you.

 

~JF Herrera

ARTIST BIO

The son of farmworkers, poet Juan Felipe Herrera was born in Fowler, California, in 1948. He is a graduate of UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 

During the last 50 years, Herrera has dedicated his life to poetry, community, art, and teaching. He served as poet laureate of the United States from 2015 to 2017 and poet laureate of California from 2012 to 2015. 

Herrera’s awards and honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, the Latino Hall of Fame Award, a Pushcart Prize, a UCR/LARB Lifetime Achievement Award, a Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award, and the UCLA Chancellor’s Medal.

Herrera is the author of more than 30 books, including the new and expanded edition of his groundbreaking 1989 bilingual book “Akrílica,” published in 2022 by Noemi Press, and the poetry collection “California Brown: Illuminations and Hollers” published in 2024 by Mouthfeel Press.

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