Sleeping on Fists

Alberto Ríos

Dooryard Press

National Book Award finalist
Alberto Ríos explains the world not through reason but magic. These poemsset in a town that straddles Mexico and Arizonaare 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 lifemyth 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 &amp; 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.

The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Copper Canyon Press

The Theater of Night

“Ríos writes in a serenely clear manner.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Ríos’ 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
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 Mexican-American border, his poems trace the lives and loves of an elderly couple, Clemente and Ventura, through their childhood and courtship to marriage, maturity, old age, and death.
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. It’s so when the soul comes out of the body it’s been in, But which doesn’t work anymore, It won’t simply go into another one And try to make itself at home, Pretending as if nothing happened . . .
Ríos’ narratives are both surreal and hyper-real, creating the hard, sweet weave of two lives becoming one. The National Book Award judges noted that Ríos is a “poet of reverie,” and like the best of storytellers he charms his readers, making us care deeply for—even love—these people we read.
Alberto Ríos is the poet laureate of Arizona and teaches at Arizona State University. He is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. Ríos 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, 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.

History & Criticism

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Books by Alberto Ríos

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alberto Ríos. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sleeping on Fists

The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body

The Theater of Night

The Theater of Night