Visiting U.S. Poet Laureate Herrera receives key to Strip

By Scott Lucas

Published Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015 | 11:30 a.m.

Updated Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015 | 6:58 p.m.

Las Vegas can be forgiven if it has grown blasé about visits from candidates for president, as nearly every week seems to bring a new crop of aspirants to shake its hands and kiss its babies. But Saturday morning brought a visit by a national figure of an entirely different kind — a member of the unacknowledged Legislature.

The first official visit to Las Vegas by a sitting U.S. poet laureate began Saturday as Juan Felipe Herrera was greeted at McCarran International Airport by a delegation of local leaders, including Clark County Poet Laureate Bruce Isaacson.

Clark County Commissioner Mary Beth Scow presented Herrera with a key to the Strip and a proclamation declaring Saturday Juan Felipe Herrera Day in Las Vegas. She winked at that apparent incongruity of his visit to a city better known for keno than Keats, jokingly welcoming the poet to “this desert wasteland of the arts.”

Herrera, whose tenure as poet laureate began Sept. 1, has spent most of his time giving readings of his work around the country. “It’s like meeting the United States head on,” he said. “So far, everything has been getting lighter and more creative.”

The work of the first Latino to serve as U.S. poet laureate — formerly the poet laureate of California — includes verse, as well as prose and children’s books. Herrera said there was tension between his work, much of which reflects the immigrant Latino experience, and his national office. “It’s always difficult to navigate among these particular struggles and joys,” he said.

Herrera was set to hold a free public workshop at 3 p.m. Saturday at the public library on 1401 E. Flamingo Road before giving a reading of his work at 7 p.m. at Nevada State College in Henderson.