Poetry Master Class: Juan Felipe Herrera May 30th


WWBA 2020 Poet-in-Residence Juan Felipe Herrera will still be presenting his Workshop and Evening Reading!
Juan Felipe Herrera has graciously agreed to have the workshop take place in a live Zoom event on Saturday, May 30th, 2020 from 2:00PM – 4:00PM.
His Evening Poetry Reading will be on the same day at 6:30PM.
We understand that this does not replace the in-person workshop; therefore we are discounting the registration pricing for Participants, Auditors, and for the Evening Reading accordingly.
The workshop on May 30th is 2:00 – 4:00PM.
The Participant fee (reading your poem, interactive with video/microphone) is $50/$40 for members. Limited enrollment for this level. Email events@waltwhitman.org to be added to waiting list.
The Auditor fee (watching the workshop with microphone and video off) is now $10/$5 for members.
Auditor Tickets Still Available Here:
Member Auditor
Non-Member Auditor
The Evening Poetry Reading is now FREE and open to ALL! It will be at 6:30pm on May 30th. Zoom Link for Free Evening Poetry Reading
Link to All Tickets: https://waltwhitman.org/product-category/event-tickets/

For the Master Class, Herrera encourages participants to utilize their creativity. “Bring whatever you’d like to bring, poems on paper, on envelopes and receipts – feel free to read your poems. Your voice is number one! We will chat a little about the magic of poetry, its 5 dimensions. We will experiment, even read together like a choir. And we just may create poetry puzzles. We will test our freedom to write the longest line on peace and unity in the world.”Copies of poems are provided for the participants.

Influenced by Allen Ginsberg and Luis Valdez and his own immersion into the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, Herrera writes passionately about social issues. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. His work has been known to cross genres, even into opera and dance theatre. While 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Borders chronicles Herrera’s involvement with spoken word and street movement performance troupes across the nation, his attention to language-centered texts can be seen in Half of the World in Light. While calling Herrera “the elder statesman of Mexican American poetry,” former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia points to the significance of his connection to a younger generation. Herrera is “the first U.S. laureate whose work has emerged from the new oral traditions that have been transforming American poetry over the past ­quarter-century,”
This event is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and is administered by The Huntington Arts Council, Inc.