Alberto Ríos

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Alberto Álvaro Ríos (b. 1952, Nogales, Arizona) is the author of nine books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. He is a Regents' professor of English at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music. ^[1]

1 Biography
2 His Writing
3 Bibliography
4 Honors
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Biography

Rìos was born in 1952 in Nogales, Arizona, a town straddling the U.S.-Mexican border. Ríos spoke both Spanish and English as a child. His father was born in Mexico and his mother in England. Alberto Ríos' poems echo this multicultural upbringing. As a child, teachers punished him for speaking Spanish in school. He and other bilingual classmates wrote notes in Spanish and left them in the trashcan for each other to find. It was considered "bad" and he forgot how to speak the language for a time. His poem Nani describes an encounter with his Spanish speaking grandmother and his inability to communicate with her. They find other ways to identify with each other, through body language and food.

Ríos started writing in the second grade, although he referred to it as "daydreaming". It was a secret act, like speaking Spanish. He did not think his friends or family would understand him, so he kept his writings hidden in the backs of his school notebooks. He did not share his poems with anyone until high school, where a teacher recognized his talent and introduced him to writers like Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It was also around this time that Ríos recovered his lost Spanish tongue, although the stigma of speaking it remained with him, memories of being "swatted" by his teacher. He would go on to study literature at the University of Arizona, where he graduated in 1974 with his BA and again a year later with a degree in psychology. He studied law for a brief period, but he returned to the University of Arizona to pursue creative writing, where he received his MFA in 1979. That same year he married Lupita Barron. He and his wife currently reside in Chandler, Arizona. They have a son, Joaquin, who is a student activist at Arizona State University. Ríos is author of several books of poetry and prose. He started teaching creative writing at Arizona State University in 1981, where he is Regents' Professor of English.

[edit] His Writing

Ríos' poetry has a noticeable emphasis on the role of strong female characters, possible due to his close relationship with his auntie. A bigger influence on his writings however, was that of his relearning Spanish and the accompanying alternate view of his world. Ríos explains this influence in his own words during a lecture:

By junior high school and the beginning of high school, I could no longer speak Spanish––which is to say, I didn't want to; I was embarrassed, and I didn't practice. Not until my later years of high school and college did I relearn Spanish, but that is what I had to do, relearn. It was more than words; it was learning how to look at something in more than one way.

After all these years, however, this was the bonus. In having to pay double and triple attention to language––first to forget, and then to relearn––I began to see earnestly how everything, every object, every idea, had at least two names, and that the process, rather than my counting it as any kind of a detriment in my life, worked instead, luckily, more like a pair of binoculars. It showed me how, by using two lenses, one might see something more closely, and thereby understand it better. ^[2]

Ríos again talks about this duality of language in an interview with Sheila Britton on the Arizona State University website:

If you’ve got only one word for something, it lacks dimension even in how you conceive of it. How you name it tells a lot. If I know that el vaso is also a glass, or an iguana killer is also a baseball bat, I’ve immediately got two ways to conceive of it. The thing has depth, and therefore I can’t help but understand it better.

I think about using two lenses, two ways of looking at something. Two lenses bring something that’s far away much closer, and anything that’s closer you see better. When you see it better, you understand it more clearly. ^[3]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Poetry

His books of poems include

The Theater of Night (Copper Canyon Press, 2006),^[4]
The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body( Copper Canyon Press, 2002) which was nominated for the National Book Award,
Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses
The Lime Orchard Woman
The Warrington Poems
Five Indiscretions
Whispering to Fool the Wind

[edit] Short stories

The Curtain of Trees
Pig Cookies
The Iguana Killer
Trains at Night
The Secret Lion

[edit] Non-fiction

Capirotada, a memoir about growing up on the Mexican border

[edit] Honors

2002 finalist for the 2002 National Book Award
At her request, Ríos wrote and delivered a poem at the inauguration of Janet Napolitano, Governor of the State of Arizona
At Governor Napolitano's request, wrote a poem for the visit of President Vicente Fox of Mexico.
2002 recipient of the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award
Arizona Governor's Arts Award
Guggenheim Foundation fellowship
National Endowment for the Arts fellowship
Walt Whitman Award
Western States Book Award for Fiction
six Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and fiction
inclusion in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry
inclusion in over 175 other national and international literary anthologies
selected as a 2005 Historymaker by the Arizona History Society's Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate, at Papago Park, Tempe, Arizona