The 21st Poet Laureate of the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera served from 2015 to 2017 as the first Latino to hold the position. Born in Fowler, California, to Mexican migrant farmworkers, he earned a BA from UCLA, an MA in social anthropology from Stanford University, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His collection Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press, 2008) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, shared that year with August Kleinzahler. He served as California Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2015 and is professor emeritus at California State University, Fresno.
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