SOURCE: Saldívar, José David. “The Real and the Marvelous in Nogales, Arizona.” Denver Quarterly 17, no. 2 (summer 1982): 141-44.

In the following review, Saldívar regards Whispering to Fool the Wind as a classic volume of poetry.

Whispering to Fool the Wind, the 1981 Walt Whitman Award-winning manuscript, by Alberto Ríos, seems, as few first volumes of poetry do, an entirely necessary work, perhaps a classic. Ríos introduces new tones and perspectives to the American Southwest experience and follows such writers as Carpentier, Rulfo, and García Márquez in their dialogue between Old World forms and New World expression.

Alberto Ríos, a Chicano from Nogales, Arizona, received his MFA Creative Writing degree from the University of Arizona. Presently, he is a Visiting Professor of English and Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Ríos is sensitive to the Chicano experience and his poetry is thoughtful and...