Just announced: the Library of Congress appointed Juan Filipe Herrera as our latest national poet laureate. The child of migrant farm workers, Herrera is the first Hispanic poet laureate. As a child, he traveled up and down the state of California with his parents, and later attended UCLA with the help of a grant for disadvantaged youth.

At the age of 21, Herrera was inspired by the debut book by Puerto Rican poet, Victor Hernandez Cruz.

He also writes children's books and those for young adults. Check out our list of his titles.

The Poetry Foundation posts biographical information about him plus text and videos of his poems.

And for a brief taste of his work, here is an excerpt from the poem "Blood on the Wheel:"

Blood in the tin, in the coffee bean, in the maquila oración

Blood in the language, in the wise text of the market sausage

Blood in the border web, the penal colony shed, in the bilingual yard …