Alberto Álvaro Ríos
Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Faculty 2018 - 2021
About Alberto Álvaro Ríos
Alberto Ríos, Arizona’s inaugural poet laureate and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, is the author of eleven books and chapbooks of poetry, including The Theater of Night—winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award—three collections of short stories, and a memoir about growing up on the border, Capirotada. His book The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body was a finalist for the National Book Award. Ríos is the recipient of numerous accolades and his work is included in over 300 national and international literary anthologies. He is also the host of the PBS program Books & Co. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music. Ríos is a University Professor of Letters, Regents’ Professor, and the Katharine C. Turner Chair in English at Arizona State University. His most recent book is A Small Story About the Sky.
More About Alberto Álvaro Ríos
Brown, Jeffrey. "To Arizona's first poet laureate, 'the border is what joins us'." PBS News Hour, March 16, 2018.
Across his life, Alberto Rios has seen enormous changes throughout the U.S.-Mexico border region, and its culture and language have shaped him as a writer. Now as Arizona's first poet laureate, Rios has a platform for his "poems of public purpose" on all that the border means to the everyone on both sides of it
Goldstein, Steve. "Arizona Inaugural Poet Laureate Talks About Importance of Words in Contentious Times." The Show, KJZZ, September 1, 2017.
I can say now that writing has very little to do with the page. It has everything to do with thinking. It has everything to do with solving the problems of the world, and solving the non-problems of the world. That is to say, simply celebrating. We forget that part. And in this very confused time we want to think that everything is a problem. And so many things are! But not everything.
Lennon, Jeff. "A Small Story About the Sky By Alberto Rios." The Rumpus, October 31, 2015.
Critics have often called Alberto Rios’ poetry ‘charming’, ‘enchanting’, ‘magical’, ‘full of invention’, and this remains true in his new collection, A Small Story About the Sky. The poems are playful, nostalgic, witty, imaginative and funny. It’s easy to envision many of them being enjoyed by children (as one hopes they are bound to be). Rios’ seasoned control of meter and rhythm, structure and pacing, mitigates what might have devolved into something too playful, too charming, too cloying, and keeps the poetic balance of the collection intact.
---. "Líneas Fronterizas / Borderlines." Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 83, no. 2, Spring 2007. You can also watch a performance of the poem from VOCA at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
El mundo en en mapa parece el deubujo de una vaca / En la carnicería, todas esas líneas mostrando / Dónde cortar
The world on a map looks like the drawing of a cow / In a butcher's shop, all those lines showing / Where to cut.
---. "The Border: A Double Sonnet." Poets.org, 2015.
The border is a line that birds cannot see.
The border is a beautiful piece of paper folded carelessly in half.
The border is where flint first met steel, starting a century of fires.
The border is a belt that is too tight, holding things up but making it hard to breathe.