Every Sound Is Not a Wolf

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.

Alberto Ríos, Arizona’s inaugural poet laureate, has won acclaim for the lyrical language of his poems and short stories which reflects his Chicano heritage through both magical realism and the magic of the everyday. Ríos is the author of twelve collections of poetry, most recently, Not Go Away Is My Name, preceded by A Small Story about the Sky, The Dangerous Shirt, and The Theater of Night, which received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. Other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has also written three short story collections, a novel, and memoir, Capirotada, about growing up on the Mexican border. Ríos is the host of the PBS programs Books & Co. and Art in the 48and has taught at Arizona State University since 1982. In 2017, he was named director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.