Juan Felipe Herrera is one of the finest, most innovative, and most challenging contemporary Chicano poets. He has also participated in theater as an actor. His unquestionable talent, his sustained production, and the maturity and coherence of his poetic endeavors have earned him--among other honors--National Endowment for the Arts awards (1980, 1985), and several literary prizes (American Book Award, 1987; University of Texas at El Paso Chicano Poetry Prize, 1985; University of California, Irvine, Chicano Literary Prize, 1979 and 1985), and also guarantee him an outstanding place in the history of Chicano literature. Herrera's poetry has moved from a cultural revival of pre-Columbian themes and motifs--a tendency that characterized a large portion of Chicano poetry and other artistic genres in the late 1960s and early 1970s--into the realm of contemporary urban life. Firmly grounded in the imagery of the city and alienated inhabitants, Herrera's most recent writings can best be described as postmodern expressionism...