Alberto Rios – författare

National Book Award finalist

Alberto Ríos explains the world not through reason but magic. These poems—set in a town that straddles Mexico and Arizona—are lyric adventures, crossing two and three boundaries as easily as one, between cultures, between languages, between senses. Drawing upon fable, parable, and family legend, Ríos utilizes the intense and supple imagination of childhood to find and preserve history beyond facts: plastic lemons turning into baseballs, a grandmother’s long hair reaching up to save her life, the painted faith jumpers leaping to the earth and crowd below. This is magical realism at its shimmering best.

"Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie and magical perception, and of the threshold between this world and the world just beyond. With humor, compassion, and intelligence, Ríos's poems overlay a child's observation and imagination onto our society of daily inequity, poverty, and violence. The light of memory shines on culture, language, family, neighbors, and friends saving them all in stories that become legends, a light so sensual and full it is 'swallowed into the mouth of the eye, / into the throat of the people.'"—National Book Award Judges' comments

"Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie... Whether talking about the smell of food, the essence of a crow or a bear's character or of hard-won human wisdom, Ríos writes in a serenely clear manner that enhances the drama in the quick scenes he summons up."—The New York Times Book Review

"... Rios's verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili."—The Christian Science Monitor

"Alberto Ríos is the man you want to sit next to when it is time to hear a story."—Southwest BookViews

"In The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, Alberto Ríos doesn't borrow a myth. Rather, he finds the myth underlying his own life—myth that translates effectively because it is not confined by language. The images of Ríos' life are so vivid, it is as if he has written a picture book that anyone can understand."—The Home & News Tribune

"In his new book of poems, Alberto Ríos has given us evidence and motive for celebration. Ríos' poems follow a path of wonder and gently move us to emotional truths that grab our breath and link our inner and outer landscapes. His alchemy works a transformation in the inner vision, turning us toward the deeper mystery of life itself."—American Book Review

Alberto Ríos teaches at Arizona State and is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir about growing up on the Mexican border. He is the recipient of numerous awards and his work is included in over 175 national and international literary anthologies. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music.

“In this rhapsodic series of poems, Ríiacute;os presents the story of Ventura and Clemente Ríos, a married couple living near the United States-Mexico border. . . . Ríos's project [is] indebted to magic realism but rooted in naturalism.”—The New Yorker

“Ríos creates the feeling of enchanted or intimate lore within a family [and] evokes the mysterious and unexpected forces that dwell inside the familiar.”—The Washington Post

Now in paperback, and following the success of his National Book Award nomination, Alberto Ríos' new book is filled with magic, marvel, and emotional truth. Set along the elusive southern border, his poems trace the lives and loves of an elderly couple through their childhood and courtship to marriage, maturity, old age, and death. Like the best of storytellers, Ríos charms his readers, making us care deeply—even love—these people we read.

From “The Chair She Sits In”:

I've heard this thing where, when someone dies, People close up all the holes around the house- The keyholes, the chimney, the windows,Even the mouths of the animals, the dogs and the pigs.It's so the soul won't be confused, or tempted . . .

Alberto Ríos, the poet laureate of Arizona, teaches at Arizona State University. He is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir.

"Discursive yet aglitter with images, often abstract and yet insistently regional, the ninth collection from the Arizona-based Rios includes something for almost everyone."—Publishers Weekly

"Wonderfully odd, sometimes sad, never predictable... Rios continually surprises us in the way he stretches the meaning of words, turning them this way and that." -- San Francisco Chronicle

“Ríos's verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“Alberto Ríos is... arguably the best Latino poet writing in English today.”—Prairie Schooner

Alberto Ríos's new poems—magical wormholes through mundane reality—create an improbably true space where human bodies fall through floorboards, prickly feelings of limbs “fallen asleep” are stars buzzing under the skin, and ironed shirts hanging in a closet take on a foreboding sense of danger. Together they are a book of magical realism and cultural physics seeking the “also-moment”—the probable and imaginative directions a single moment might become. “Science may be our best way of understanding the world,” Ríos writes in one poem, “but it may not be our best way of living in it.”

The shirt in my closet is dangerous.I shouldn't have ironed it.

Because I have, I will put it on.If I put it on, I will be dressed.

If I am dressed, I will be drawn toward the door,The door and not the couch—the door . . .

Alberto Ríos is the author of nine books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. He has taught at Arizona State University for over twenty-five years. His book of poems The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body was nominated for the National Book Award.

"Rios evokes the mysterious and unexpected forces that dwell inside the familiar."—The Washington Post

"Ríos delivers another stunning book of poems, rich in impeccable metaphors, that revel in the ordinariness of morning coffee and the crackle of thunderous desert storms. In one sonnet, Ríos addresses injustice in the borderlands, capturing with mathematical precision the everyday struggles that many migrants face—'The border is an equation in search of an equals sign.' A series of sonnets about desert flora abounds with fantastic, magical imagery—'Bougainvilleas do not bloom—they bleed' and 'Apricots are eggs laid in trees by invisible golden hens.' Likewise, Ríos's bestiary sonnets overflow with inimitable similes, worthy of a book unto themselves—'Minnows are where a river’s leg has fallen asleep' and 'Gnats are sneezes still flying around.' This robust volume is the perfect place to start for readers new to Ríos and a prize for seasoned fans."—Booklist

In his thirteenth book, Alberto Rios casts an intense desert light on the rich stories unfolding along the Mexico-US border. Peppered with Spanish and touches of magical realism, ordinary life and its simple props—morning showers, spilled birdseed, winter lemons—becomes an exploration of mortality and humanity, and the many possibilities of how lives might yet be lived.

Mad Honey

Made from magnificent rhododendron, poisonous rhododendron,Very difficult-to-pronounce rhododendron—whatever

Rhododendron even is—I would have to look it up myself,This word sounding puffed up, peacocky with its

Indianapolisly-long spelling, all those letters moving in and out.But the plant itself, the plant and the bees that find it:

The bees see in its purple flower, first, a purple flower.They do not spell it. They do not live in fear of quizzes,

Purple offering what it has to offer, unapologetic, without furtherDefinition, purple irresistible to the artist's and to the bee's eye—

Who can blame either one this first-grade impulse toward love?Purple, always wearing something low-cut . . .

Alberto Rios is the Poet Laureate of Arizona and host of the PBS program Books & Co. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for his poetry volume The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body. He teaches at Arizona State University and lives in Chandler, Arizona.

From backyard to Sonoran desert, Every Sound is Not a Wolf explores the tender connection between people, place, and the natural world.

Alberto Ríos’ Every Sound is Not a Wolf evokes and awakens the senses—the smell of herbs, “the geckos at their mysterious work.” Even silence grows loud and expansive in its stillness. Told entirely in couplets, and with remarkable lucidity, Ríos balances the harmonies and disharmonies found throughout all of existence—between people and the natural world, between life and death, between spirit and body, between borders real and imagined. What does it mean for a body to house two languages? And what is an imaginary line between countries? From backyard to Sonoran desert, from mining town to river, this collection journeys the human experience, through grief and joy, tuned to the “small buzzing of a live world.” Ríos asks us to feel the connective electric pulse between all things, to find newness, musicality, and beauty in the mundane. That the world keeps moving forward, this is miracle enough.

National Book Award finalist

Alberto Ríos explains the world not through reason but magic. These poems—set in a town that straddles Mexico and Arizona—are lyric adventures, crossing two and three boundaries as easily as one, between cultures, between languages, between senses. Drawing upon fable, parable, and family legend, Ríos utilizes the intense and supple imagination of childhood to find and preserve history beyond facts: plastic lemons turning into baseballs, a grandmother’s long hair reaching up to save her life, the painted faith jumpers leaping to the earth and crowd below. This is magical realism at its shimmering best.

"Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie and magical perception, and of the threshold between this world and the world just beyond. With humor, compassion, and intelligence, Ríos''s poems overlay a child''s observation and imagination onto our society of daily inequity, poverty, and violence. The light of memory shines on culture, language, family, neighbors, and friends saving them all in stories that become legends, a light so sensual and full it is ''swallowed into the mouth of the eye, / into the throat of the people.''"—National Book Award Judges'' comments

"Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie... Whether talking about the smell of food, the essence of a crow or a bear''s character or of hard-won human wisdom, Ríos writes in a serenely clear manner that enhances the drama in the quick scenes he summons up."—The New York Times Book Review

"... Rios''s verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili."—The Christian Science Monitor

"Alberto Ríos is the man you want to sit next to when it is time to hear a story."—Southwest BookViews

"In The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, Alberto Ríos doesn''t borrow a myth. Rather, he finds the myth underlying his own life—myth that translates effectively because it is not confined by language. The images of Ríos'' life are so vivid, it is as if he has written a picture book that anyone can understand."—The Home & News Tribune

"In his new book of poems, Alberto Ríos has given us evidence and motive for celebration. Ríos'' poems follow a path of wonder and gently move us to emotional truths that grab our breath and link our inner and outer landscapes. His alchemy works a transformation in the inner vision, turning us toward the deeper mystery of life itself."—American Book Review

Alberto Ríos teaches at Arizona State and is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir about growing up on the Mexican border. He is the recipient of numerous awards and his work is included in over 175 national and international literary anthologies. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music.

"Rios evokes the mysterious and unexpected forces that dwell inside the familiar."—The Washington Post

"Ríos delivers another stunning book of poems, rich in impeccable metaphors, that revel in the ordinariness of morning coffee and the crackle of thunderous desert storms. In one sonnet, Ríos addresses injustice in the borderlands, capturing with mathematical precision the everyday struggles that many migrants face—''The border is an equation in search of an equals sign.'' A series of sonnets about desert flora abounds with fantastic, magical imagery—''Bougainvilleas do not bloom—they bleed'' and ''Apricots are eggs laid in trees by invisible golden hens.'' Likewise, Ríos''s bestiary sonnets overflow with inimitable similes, worthy of a book unto themselves—''Minnows are where a river’s leg has fallen asleep'' and ''Gnats are sneezes still flying around.'' This robust volume is the perfect place to start for readers new to Ríos and a prize for seasoned fans."—Booklist

In his thirteenth book, Alberto Rios casts an intense desert light on the rich stories unfolding along the Mexico-US border. Peppered with Spanish and touches of magical realism, ordinary life and its simple props—morning showers, spilled birdseed, winter lemons—becomes an exploration of mortality and humanity, and the many possibilities of how lives might yet be lived.

Mad Honey

Made from magnificent rhododendron, poisonous rhododendron,Very difficult-to-pronounce rhododendron—whatever

Rhododendron even is—I would have to look it up myself,This word sounding puffed up, peacocky with its

Indianapolisly-long spelling, all those letters moving in and out.But the plant itself, the plant and the bees that find it:

The bees see in its purple flower, first, a purple flower.They do not spell it. They do not live in fear of quizzes,

Purple offering what it has to offer, unapologetic, without furtherDefinition, purple irresistible to the artist''s and to the bee''s eye—

Who can blame either one this first-grade impulse toward love?Purple, always wearing something low-cut . . .

Alberto Rios is the Poet Laureate of Arizona and host of the PBS program Books & Co. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for his poetry volume The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body. He teaches at Arizona State University and lives in Chandler, Arizona.

 “In this rhapsodic series of poems, Ríos presents the story of Ventura and Clemente Ríos, a married couple living near the United States-Mexico border. . . . Ríos’s project [is] indebted to magic realism but rooted in naturalism.”—The New Yorker

“Ríos creates the feeling of enchanted or intimate lore within a family [and] evokes the mysterious and unexpected forces that dwell inside the familiar.”—The Washington Post

Now in paperback, and following the success of his National Book Award nomination, Alberto Ríos’ new book is filled with magic, marvel, and emotional truth. Set along the elusive southern border, his poems trace the lives and loves of an elderly couple through their childhood and courtship to marriage, maturity, old age, and death. Like the best of storytellers, Ríos charms his readers, making us care deeply—even love—these people we read.

From “The Chair She Sits In”:

I’ve heard this thing where, when someone dies, People close up all the holes around the house- The keyholes, the chimney, the windows,Even the mouths of the animals, the dogs and the pigs.It’s so the soul won’t be confused, or tempted . . .

Alberto Ríos, the poet laureate of Arizona, teaches at Arizona State University. He is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir.

From backyard to Sonoran desert, Every Sound is Not a Wolf explores the tender connection between people, place, and the natural world.

Alberto Ríos’ Every Sound is Not a Wolf evokes and awakens the senses—the smell of herbs, “the geckos at their mysterious work.” Even silence grows loud and expansive in its stillness. Told entirely in couplets, and with remarkable lucidity, Ríos balances the harmonies and disharmonies found throughout all of existence—between people and the natural world, between life and death, between spirit and body, between borders real and imagined. What does it mean for a body to house two languages? And what is an imaginary line between countries? From backyard to Sonoran desert, from mining town to river, this collection journeys the human experience, through grief and joy, tuned to the “small buzzing of a live world.” Ríos asks us to feel the connective electric pulse between all things, to find newness, musicality, and beauty in the mundane. That the world keeps moving forward, this is miracle enough.