Alberto Ríos
Alberto Ríos Poems
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
...
In Mexico and Latin America, celebrating one's
Saint's day instead of one's birthday is common.
...
We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.
We speak words between us that we recognize
...
Mr. Teodoro Luna in his later years had taken to kissing
His wife
Not so much with his lips as with his brows.
This is not to say he put his forehead
...
In the old days of our family,
My grandmother was a young woman
Whose hair was as long as the river.
She lived with her sisters on the ranch
...
On the Mexico side in the 1950s and 60s,
There were movie houses everywhere
...
I've heard this thing where, when someone dies,
People close up all the holes around the house—
...
The wine of uncharted days,
Their unsteady stance against the working world,
...
The fire was so fierce,
So red, so gray, so yellow
That, along with the land,
...
1.
Pies have a reputation.
And it's immediate—no talk of potential
...
Alberto Ríos Biography
Alberto Álvaro Ríos (born 1952 in Nogales, Arizona) is the author of ten books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. His books of poems include, most recently, The Dangerous Shirt, along with The Theater of Night, winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, finalist for the National Book Award, Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses, The Lime Orchard Woman, The Warrington Poems, Five Indiscretions, and Whispering to Fool the Wind, which won the Walt Whitman Award. His three collections of short stories are, most recently, The Curtain of Trees, along with Pig Cookies and The Iguana Killer, which won the first Western States Book Award for Fiction, judged by Robert Penn Warren. His memoir about growing up on the Mexico-Arizona border, called Capirotada, won the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award and was designated the OneBookArizona choice for 2009. Ríos is the recipient of the Western Literature Association Distinguished Achievement Award, the Arizona Governor's Arts Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Walt Whitman Award, the Western States Book Award for Fiction, six Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and fiction, and inclusion in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, as well as over 300 other national and international literary anthologies. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music. Ríos is a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University, where he has taught since 1982 and where he holds the further distinction of the Katharine C. Turner Endowed Chair in English. In August 2013 Rios was named Arizona's first state poet laureate, a position he holds until 2015.)
The Best Poem Of Alberto Ríos
When Giving Is All We Have
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
Alberto Ríos Comments
You spoke a poem on PBS this evening. I would love to read it in it's entirety but missed the name. I would appreciate it greatly. I am from the east coast and hunger to share your vision. I do not know if it is possible for you to reply to this request. In these times of turmoil your vision was so beautifully honest and touched me greatly.
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5/17/2025 5:41:30 PM # 1.0.0
I am researching this guy! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !