“Grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual” (New York Times), Juan Felipe Herrera is the virtuosic first Mexican American U.S. Poet Laureate. The son of migrant farm workers, his writing is strongly influenced by his experiences in California as a campesino and the artistic movements he discovered in 1960s San Francisco. His poetry collections include 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007, Senegal Taxi, and Half the World in Light, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The author of several works of prose, short stories, young adult novels, and bilingual picture books for children, Herrera joins the Free Library for a celebration of identity, cultural perspective, and the verses of a lyrical life.