Pat Mora has developed one of the broadest audiences of any Hispanic poet in the United States. Her crisp narrative style and the healing messages in her verse appeal to both adult and young readers. As a result, her poems have been reprinted in many elementary-, middle-, and high-school textbooks. While Mora has often been considered a soft-spoken feminist and a regional poet who celebrates life in the desert, her poetic vision has an all-embracing quality; she has written verse that explores the condition of women not only in the Southwest but also in Third World countries such as Pakistan. She has also written deeply humanistic essays and richly diverse children's literature that both encompasses Mexican folk traditions and addresses such modern topics as adoption.

Patricia Estella Mora was born on 19 January 1942 in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of an optician, Raúl Antonio Mora, and Estella...