Review - ‘Notes on the Assemblage’

Juan Felipe Herrera was named the Library of Congress Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2015 and was reappointed in 2016. He is the 21st Poet Laureate and the first Hispanic to poet to serve in the position.

Herrera's most recent collection, 'Notes on the Assemblage,” is a varied and arresting book, filled with emotion and experimentation. Herrera's work is overtly engaged with issues of social justice, and he often approaches those issues from a deeply personal point of view.

I was particularly struck by a section of the book entitled 'Hard Hooks.” Each of the five poems in this portion of the collection is dedicated to and reflects on a poet who has died. 'Hey Phil,” for example, is a tribute to Iowa Writers' Workshop alum and fellow Poet Laureate Philip Levine. The poem ends '...you just carved/chiseled punctured rotated jitterbugged/and whirred past a distant gate.”

In 'Hard Hooks that Fold You Down to Your Knees,” Herrera remembers a conversation about poet Jack Gilbert that took place in a Dunkin' Donuts: 'We came to a stop, Jerry slowed and spoke of Jack. The words are/jumbled up now if I could recall them maybe about Jack being in a/Berkeley home with Alzheimer's having saved serious money just/hand it over to caretakers. It wasn't the words. It was the tenderness/in Stern's voice.”

Herrera's own voice is strong throughout 'Notes on the Assemblage.” The collection, which includes several poems rendered in both Spanish and English, offers proof that the Poet Laureate position is currently occupied by a poet with a vital - in both senses of the word - approach to his art.