Every Sound Is Not a Wolf - by Alberto Ríos (Paperback)

About the Book

"A collection of poems by Alberto Râios"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Every Sound is Not a Wolf

"Poet, shortstory writer, and memoirist Ríos prods the soundscape of the Southwest, forging deliberate and attentive paths in poems composed of couplets. Ríos repeatedly transforms the Mexican American borderlands, from the dreary neutrality of twilight ('We are standing in a gray hour, dusk or dawn-- / So tired but we cannot say') into a 'ready feast, a continuing festival, a traveling circus of imaginary // Delights.' Ríos wrangles a wealth of memorable images, from the strangely disorienting ('A downed mesquite, a pelican confused') to the simply striking: 'The orange tree in the side yard is full of white blossoms.' Turning his poetic eye indoors, Ríos apostrophizes household objects ('Mirror, I would recognize you anywhere') and remarks on their musical qualities, such as the 'operatic soprano door hinge.' Ever a poet of calculating purview, Ríos revels in the present, even as he casts a wary eye and ear forward: 'The future will speak our words. / But there is another language ahead.'"--Diego Báez, Booklist

"One of our funniest writers and one of our most socially astute writers as well."--Mark Athitakis, KJZZ Phoenix

"A sense of amplitude and aggregation permeates Alberto Ríos' new collection, Every Sound Is Not a Wolf. . . . These capacious poems, written almost entirely in couplets, make room for the memories of loved ones, childhood experiences, sensory perceptions, scenes and situations, insight and bewilderment. . . . A generous, optimistic book."--Lorna Knowles Blake, Hudson Review

"Ríos weaves the intimacies of life with the world at large, resulting in a work of hope and tenderness."--2026 Southwest Books of the Year, Pima County Library

Praise for Alberto Ríos

"[Ríos's] concise poems--often stately columns of couplets--drift off regularly into memories of a Mexican-American childhood in Arizona."--New York Times

"Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie and magical perception, and of the threshold between this world and the world just beyond."--Judges' citation, National Book Award

"Discursive yet aglitter with images, often abstract and yet insistently regional . . . Ríos includes something for almost everyone."--Publishers Weekly

"Ríos's verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili."--Christian Science Monitor

"Gentle, accessible work that retains its powers within (not despite) its linguistic and stylistic smoothness, and these powers pull the mind and heart awake in ways that only poetry can do."--Western American Literature

"Touches on the timeless capacity of love, family, and community to help us realize our better selves."--ASU Now

"Alberto Ríos is the man you want to sit next to when it is time to hear a story."--Southwest BookViews

About the Author

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 48 and has taught at Arizona State University since 1982. In 2017, he was named director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.