SOURCE: Vela, Richard. “The Idea of Boundaries in the Work of Alberto Ríos.” Pembroke Magazine, no. 34 (2002): 115-22.

In the following essay, Vela traces the concept of borders in Ríos's verse, contending that his work “ranges from exploring the dualistic nature of border culture to exploring the hybrid culture that results from these juxtapositions.”

Alberto Alvaro Ríos has written four books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. He won the Walt Whitman Award in 1981 for his first book of poetry, Whispering to Fool the Wind (1982), and the Western States Book Award for his short story collection, The Iguana Killer (1984). Growing up on the Arizona border, the son of an English mother and a Mexican father from the tropical state of Chiapas in Mexico, Ríos experienced the notion of boundaries or borders in many ways, and his work explores that basic concept...