This week, AWM Facilities Supervisor, Cristina Carrera, chats with former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera about his new collection Every Day We Get More Illegal.
We hope you enjoy entering the mind of a writer. Find more podcast episodes here.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
“Instead of more openness, the doors seem to be bigger and tighter and more locked up, in more ways than one. So I wanted to think about that and I want to have the readers and everyone reflect on those things. What kind of nation are we? What is America? Who are we?”
“I write everyday…and scribble. Don’t think I write these big papers everyday. I just scribble, put a few words on paper and just follow those words.”
“Actions can be illegal, perhaps. But how can people be illegal? That’s reducing. When we call someone illegal we’re reducing that human being into a phrase on a piece of paper. And a human being is not a phrase on a piece of paper. A human being is a beautiful being, with many dimensions.”
“If you don’t see a stop sign, don’t create one for yourself. Explore. That’s what we are as writers, we’re explorers.”
“What is reality? It has pain, suffering, joy, happiness, many cultures, many languages, many religions, many people…it has all that. So a full human being embraces the entire world, all of humanity. And then you’ll feel what happiness really is.”