Lee Herrick

Lee Herrick was born in Daejeon, South Korea, and adopted to the United States at ten months old. He is the author of four books of poetry: In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems (Gunpowder Press, 2024); Scar and Flower (Word Poetry Books, 2018); Gardening Secrets of the Dead (WordTech Editions, 2012); and This Many Miles from Desire (WordTech Editions, 2007).

Herrick is the coeditor, with Leah Silvieus, of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books). His writing has appeared in various anthologies, including Here: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), edited by Elizabeth J. Coleman with an introduction by the Dalai Lama; Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice (Norwood House Press, 2013), edited by Gail Bush and Randy Meyer with an introduction by Common; and Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy (Trinity University Press, 2020), edited by Simmons Buntin, Elizabeth Dodd, and Derek Sheffield. 

Herrick served as Fresno poet laureate from 2015 to 2017.  In 2022, Herrick was appointed the tenth poet laureate of California and is the first person to be officially reappointed to the position. He lives and teaches in Fresno, California.