Laughing Out Loud, I Fly: Poems in English and Spanish – Pura Belpré Honor Bilingual Verses About Mexican-American Culture

by Juan Felipe Herrera, Karen Barbour (Illustrator)

From U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, here are stirring poems that read like music. Awarded the Pura Belpré Honor for this book, Herrera writes in both Spanish and English about the joy and laughter and sometimes the confusion of growing up in an upside-down, jumbled-up world—between two cultures, two homes. With a crazy maraca beat, Herrera creates poetry as rich and vibrant as mole de olé and pineapple tamales . . . an aroma of papaya . . . a clear soup with strong garlic, so you will grow & not disappear. Herrera's words are hot & peppery, good for you. They show us what it means to laugh out loud until it feels like flying.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Adult, Picture Books

48 pages, Paperback

Published September 8, 2015

About the author

Juan Felipe Herrera is the only son of Lucha Quintana and Felipe Emilio Herrera; the three were campesinos living from crop to crop on the roads of the San Joaquín Valley, Southern California and the Salinas Valley. Herrera's experiences as the child of migrant farmers have strongly shaped his work, such as the children's book Calling the Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats award in 1997. He is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist who draws from real life experiences as well as years of education to inform his work. Community and art has always been part of what has driven Herrera, beginning in the mid-seventies, when he was director of the Centro Cultural de la Raza, an occupied water tank in Balboa Park converted into an arts space for the community.
Herrera’s publications include fourteen collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children in the last decade with twenty-one books in total.

Reviews

[Asing]

The book of poems Laughing Out Loud, I Fly by Juan Felipe Herrera is a book full of descriptive, beautiful poems, with language that sometimes leaves the meaning left up to interpretation. Each poem in the book represented and discussed an aspect of Herrera’s childhood, topics from food to socks. Detailed writing and similes bring depth to the writing, such as “…Cuban chicken sugar & her chicken coop is Beethoven's symphony…” (Herrera When the). I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to be a little confused and open minded while reading and decoding the fragmented literature and is looking for a detailed and interesting poetry book. This poem brought together themes from Herrera’s childhood like the “…Greek book stamps in blue island ocean, tiny hopes, tiny hands from another daydream…” (Herrera I Wake) and beautiful writing to create an engaging collection of poems.

[Ryan]

Written by Juan Felipe Herrera, Laughing Out Loud is a collection of poems he wrote as a reflection of his childhood. All of them are written in both Spanish & English and pretty short. Despite their short lengths, the poems are very descriptive of what he talks about. Many of the works talk of the food he loved to eat as a child, or the small events that occurred in his family. Because of his writing style, the works are of a lighthearted, flighty tone of manner. But it also means that the text is not meant to be taken as literally as he describes these things. And likely because of my lack of reading enough poetry, some of what he is writing about is hard to figure out the meaning behind them. Regardless though, Laughing Out Loud, I Fly is a nice poetry collection brought the best of representation of his childhood through words.

[Bruce]

In the afterword the author writes, “At the age of seventeen, in a San Francisco bookstore, when I first opened Picasso’s tiny book of poems Hunk of Skin, I was immediately bathed in sunlight.” Farther on he continues, “Pablo Picasso’s poems are like his famous paintings: faces, flavors and places from different worlds are brought together in quick strokes of color and imagination. Can my words and poems leap like this too?”

This book is the result. A juxtaposition of brilliant images and words splashes across each single page poem, Spanish on the verso and English on the recto. The language is a bit more musical in Spanish, but the images arrive unimpaired in English. It’s a joyful cubist rendering of the sensations of childhood, and it is brilliant.

[Sinny]

Although the book is in Spanish and English and I understand both perfectly, is quite incomprehensible.
You could find some beautiful images, about food, Mexico, being an immigrant, yada yada; but it’s not really good poetry.

[Maggie]

The book immediately jumps into the childhood mind of Juan Felipe Herrera. When I read the poem I am not just reading it but there witnessing it. I am "on the sidewalk afterschool, waiting for the green striped bus" reaching for Mamá Lucha living the actions as I read them (Herrera Laughing Out). This being the first poem of the book it was my first impression on the poet. This is a poem you cannot read once and get the full meaning. It is just one long sentence with so much culture wrapped in. it felt that I was in his childhood mind reading his thoughts as the action is passed by. "I jump I am a monkey cartoon" shows how current topic in his life resonate with what he is doing (Laughing out). This first poem draws the reader in and makes them keep reading from the meticulous thought put into to this sentence.

The book "Laughing Out Loud I Fly" by Juan Felipe Herrera is a book worth reading. It has the ability to draw you in while concealing information so you keep reading. In this book you will find words that sing like a song in both English and Spanish. It visualizes Juan Felipe Herrera's childhood through words familiar to what goes through a child's head, a bit eclectic, but in the best way possible. Herrera's poems are just one long sentence covering themes ranging from his multi-cultured childhood. I would recommend this book as one to ponder through for you cannot read this once and get a full understanding but must read over the page a few times.

[XenoCyan]

In this poem, the author talks about his family. He talks about the job that his father takes to support his family as he "leaves to work in the fields" (Herrera It Is). This quote mentions his father for the first time and what he does for a living to support his family. This poem also talks about the authors history as he is "from Fresno, from San Antonio, from Joigelito to San Francisco or Pancho Villa [and] from Sevilla" (It Is).
Something that we can take away from these volumes of poems in Laughing Out Loud, I Fly is that even the simplest things can be expressed in the most intricate and detailed ways. The author talks about his "famous socks woven with nights and some with days, others with goosebumps and threaded rivers" (I Own). The Author could have just said his socks or his famous socks, instead he explains how the threads are woven and how they look like goosebumps and threaded rivers. The author also writes a little reflection about how Picasso's tiny book of poems Hunk of Skin inspired him to write these poems. Another interesting thing to note is that all of his poems are one big sentence, and one big stanza.

[Kailen]

In the book Laughing Out Loud, I Fly, there was a lot of good poetry demonstrating the author's life and what it was like for him to grow up, but, occasionally the subject would change during the poem making it a little hard to understand the chain of events, but the way this piece of art was written was impeccable. If I were to recommend this book to any other readers, I would say that if you would like to know other people's experiences growing up as well as see the many interesting stories and metaphors he showed, then, in my eyes, this book would be a perfect match for you. Reading this book would allow you to hear the many stories about all of the relatives of Juan Felipe Herrera as well as Herrera's pets, the cooking his mother did, as well as many other people he grew up with during his childhood. The intelligently crafted metaphorical masterpieces of poems are a must-read.

[Ann Tracy]

I’m shocked about the poor reviews of this chapbook & I’d give it a 5 simply to help balance things, but I reserve that for life changing books.

There is nothing difficult to understand about this book other than how many readers said they didn’t like it or understand it. In fact I’d recommend this book to new poetry readers. The imagery and words flow just beautifully. Each story seems a memory, a nod, to joy & hard times within the life of his mixed culture. an understanding of his own history & culture. My only response to those reviews is maybe you need to occasionally step outside your own culture or maybe you need to make an attempt to learn a little bit about poetry.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Herrera swept me away with his poems, thank you. I can see how his relationship to music strengthens his work. Wonderful to read the words of an established Chicano poet.

[Garrett Ensing]

Laughing Out Loud I Fly by Juan Felipe Herrera is an extremely creative book and difficult book to understand. The main theme of the book is creativity. Many poems talk about the value of imagination and how creativity is extremely valuable. This is often done through metaphors and other descriptive writing techniques. However, these techniques making it very default to understand the poems. The takeaways from the poems are valuable, but it is extremely hard to know the takeaways of the poems because of how hard the book is to understand. In conclusion, Laughing Out Loud I Fly is a creative book that showcases unique and writing but it is really hard to understand

[Gina]

I really hated this one, though I realize not everyone will.

The author was inspired by some writing of Picasso, and provides an excerpt from that work, Hunk of Skin.

I can see that this would be a reasonable companion to that, but that I wouldn't like either. Picasso's prose also goes with his art. He is not my favorite, but if that's to your taste, okay.

What I do find odd is that I read this because it won a Pura Belpre award, and those are for your readers. It seems like a bad match for young readers. Yes, it is a short book of short poems, but having read some other poetry geared toward younger readers recently, this just seems like a bad match.

[Gaon]

After reading a portion of his poems in Laughing Out Loud, I Fly, I was able to learn about Juan Felipe Herrera's style in writing. He seems to write about a main point and idea but covers it with his creative descriptions. His writing seems to cover up what he wants to represent using overlapping stanzas. The poems have a possibility of coming from his own past as a young boy as the narrator in his poems describes a childhood. I would definitely recommend the book to someone who enjoys analyzing poems that are harder to break down or one who enjoys the descriptive scenery included.

[Spencer Petersen]

I enjoy bilingual books. The parallel text is very helpful for building my vocabulary in foreign languages. I also appreciate the descriptive words that poetry provides. This one in particular is a fairly light read, which makes it easy to finish in a single sitting. It really helped to reinforce my Spanish vocabulary a lot in a very short period of time.

[Dashiel]

Laughing out loud I fly is a book of poems about Juan Felipe Herrera's childhood, and is a culmination of textures, feeling, tastes, and more about his childhood. His writing style can feel confusing, but it is unique

[Grace]

A lovely book of poems that gently takes your hand as you dance through the lived experiences of the author. The side-by-side Spanish-English translations were a beautiful sight to behold as well. I will return to this treasure again.

[Gabriel Weaver]

This would be a book that I would really have to take my time and do full literary analyses of the poems in order for me to truly appreciate it. Upon a first cursory read, this book was very inaccessible to me.

[Shannon]

Charming celebration of life!

[Kate]

Not my style of poetry. Many of the poems read like lists that sometimes become weird. I liked reading the poems in both English and Spanish though.

[Crystal]

I feel like I need to read Picasso's Hunk of Skin to fully understand the inspiration here, but the poems were still interesting without that background.

The poems felt surreal and I wasn't always sure I followed how everything connected, but it also seemed that they weren't necessarily supposed to fit precisely. The poems seemed to be stream of consciousness. The poems were like modern art in words.

[Cindy]

I wanted to read some poetry by the new US poet Laureate. Colorful snapshots of the author's childhood. I could read the Spanish (mostly) but was glad the English version was there for the vocabulary that I did not know. Well-worth the time to read.

[Steph Lovelady]

There's a note at the end that explains the poems were inspired by Picasso's imagery, which explains the fragmented nature of the poems. Sometimes it works, but other times, it's just hard to follow in either language.

[Aolund]

Exquisite poetry; I wish I could read both the Spanish and the English.

[Andria Kerkof]

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