MS Speaks

Juan Felipe Herrera has been named the US poet laureate. He was the child of migrant farm workers, and many of his poems are an innovative amalgam of both Spanish and English:

[Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way]
BY JUAN FELIPE HERRERA
         
       
Let us gather in a flourishing way
with sunluz grains abriendo los cantos
que cargamos cada día   
en el young pasto nuestro cuerpo
para regalar y dar feliz perlas pearls
of corn flowing árboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas
let us gather in a flourishing way
contentos llenos de fuerza to vida
giving nacimientos to fragrant ríos   
dulces frescos verdes turquoise strong
carne de nuestros hijos rainbows
let us gather in a flourishing way
en la luz y en la carne of our heart to toil
tranquilos in fields of blossoms
juntos to stretch los brazos
tranquilos with the rain en la mañana
temprana estrella on our forehead
cielo de calor and wisdom to meet us
where we toil siempre
in the garden of our struggle and joy
let us offer our hearts a saludar our águila rising
freedom
a celebrar woven brazos branches ramas
piedras nopales plumas piercing bursting
figs and aguacates
ripe mariposa fields and mares claros
of our face
to breathe todos en el camino blessing
seeds to give to grow maiztlán
en las manos de nuestro amor

“[Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way]” from Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems by Juan Felipe Herrera. Copyright © 2008 Juan Felipe Herrera. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.

He might be contributing to the enrichment of English with an influx of Spanish vocabulary. At least he will have succeeded in familiarizing English-speaking US people with the idea of Spanish as a living language spoken by many people among us.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/10/412909814/juan-felipe-herrera-named-u-s-poet-laureate