Trees Dream of Water

Selected and New Poems

By Leo Romero; Foreword by Joy Harjo

SERIES:

The University of Arizona Press

“The poems in this collection began as a search for a history of my ancestors in a small, isolated valley in northern New Mexico. But no one wrote it down, and I was left to construct a poetic history where there were no written records . . .”
Leo Romero stands as a foundational figure in Latino letters. With six books of poetry and a book of short fiction to his name, Romero’s contribution to the literary canon is profound and enduring.
Bringing together for the first time his new and selected poems, Trees Dream of Water reflects Romero’s journey from youth to maturity as a person and a poet, and his deep connection to New Mexico and its culture. Traversed by memory, myth, and observation of the natural world, these poems explore family, community belonging and conflict, life as an artist, and the cycles of life and death. This lyrical anthology includes accompanying essays to illuminate Romero’s life and work for longtime admirers and new readers alike.

Now, here we are, with a classic collection, by one of the most important poets of his time and place. Stop and listen to the remembered dream of a generation, a life, the edge of a flowering desert in time.’—Joy Harjo, from the foreword

‘Leo Romero—a poet of short line, scenes of daily life, sun, mountain, tree, and moon in northern New Mexico—stands singular. Dreams come to life when you listen to the roots, notice leaves, seeds, and the movement of all beings, things, underground and above. A most valuable text, illuminating and embracing moments rarely spoken or revealed.’—Juan Felipe Herrera, emeritus poet laureate of the United States and author of Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems

‘Poetry is ageless because of time. Memory is back when, and today is now. Time is both past and present. Decades ago are decades later. Time is still ageless, more or less. I met Leo in the late 1960s. . . . And I vividly remember telling myself: this young Chicano guy Romero is a poet and a soothsayer. Watch out. And he was and is.’—Simon J. Ortiz, author of Light As Light

‘A luminous journey across a life of poetry, Leo Romero offers a profound work full of life, communion, and connection to land and community.’—Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, author of Nocturno de frontera

‘Trees Dream of Water is a captivating ride through memory, identity, and life in northern New Mexico. Leo Romero’s mastery of language and deep connection to his heritage shines through in every poem. The poems are deeply personal and universally resonant. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of culture, nature, and the art of poetry. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand loss and the search for belonging.’—Ruben Quesada, author of Jane / La Segua

‘Deeply rooted in New Mexico, Leo Romero’s poems are honed to simplicity and transform situations and narratives into myth. Following no trend but staying true to his inner compass, Leo Romero has created a poetry that is humble, moving, and thrilling to the core.’—Arthur Sze, author of The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems

‘Listening to Leo Romero’s story-anecdote-half-whispered poems can be like breaking into an old-fashioned rural phone party line and catching soulful fragments pulled from the deepest melancholy of this haggard region. Impeccably modest, conversationally incomplete, painfully personal, sometimes his unpretentious glimpses of family, friends, the intimacies of mountain hamlet life, carry an authenticity I have never experienced in words before. Born of an almost forgotten northern New Mexican experience, they are akin to magic, they are how Chicano history might actually sound were it allowed to speak for itself. Leo Romero is the region’s living treasure.’—Peter Nabokov, author of Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places

‘In this moving retrospective, Romero’s poems take us into the rural Southwest—its people, flora and fauna, indelible landscapes. Whether the perspective is from the poet-self or a persona, the journey is deep and lonesome, forged by history and ancestry, reflected in the ‘the throbbing / of the mountains / The slow breathing of trees . . . the uneasiness / of the fields.’’—Valerie Martínez, author of Count

Born in 1950 in Chacón, New Mexico, Leo Romero is considered a foundational figure of Latino letters. Since 1988, Romero has been a bookseller in Santa Fe, New Mexico, having had five different bookstores in five different locations. His current bookstore is Books of Interest. Romero has published six books of poetry and one book of short fiction, and he has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, was a Pushcart Prize winner, and a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation resident.

Foreword by Joy Harjo
Introduction by Rigoberto González
DURING THE GROWING SEASON (1978)
I Hear the Mare Neigh
If There Was Moonlight
No Stars No Stars
You Listen to the Chickens
Not of the Soil
Red Dress
Way of the Falling Rain
Chacón and Rain
Comanchito Lullaby
What Trees Dream About
Past Placitas
There’s the House
We Slept on the Porch
The Road to Waldo
As Celso Tells It
Mentiras
Yaqui Indian Blood
Her Name Is Morning
Letter to Erlinda
Hitchhiking
Green Something or Other in Kansas
If We Got Married
AGUA NEGRA (1981) In the Rincón
Benediction
Tree
The Goat’s Cry
Estafiate
Too Many Years
Agua Negra
A Shadow Which Could Be Anything
The Silent Bell
The Trees on the Hillside
Augustina
Weaving the Rain
A Lying Moon and a Lonely Bird
This Dark Winter
Leaving Vegas
There Is the Wind
My Mother Listens
One Day Before Christmas
Before We Had an Icebox
Artificial Flowers
CELSO (1980) (1985) Celso Was Born
Celso’s Father
The Moon and Angels
Ash Wednesday
Holy Water
The Miracle
A Thousand Angels
Angel Hair
Estrellita’s Lips
Una Canción de Flores
Triste, Triste Son
The Dead Are Dancing
A Dying Flower for His Heart
This Bitterness
The Sorrowful Madonna
Because the Moon Is a Woman
Job Visits Celso
Celso’s Dream
Celso Talking to the Moon
One Night as Celso
Santiago, Since I Turned Sixty
There Was a Time
GOING HOME AWAY INDIAN (1990)
Going Home Away
He Was Dancing the Yellow Dance
He Didn’t Like Me
It Was in 1856
In His Dreams
Skeleton Indian
Marilyn Monroe Indian
Skeleton Indian, He’s the Talk
I Ever See You
Yellow Blouse Woman
Skeleton Indian Thinks
Skeleton Indian Was a Navajo
Here Comes Skeleton
There’s Nothing Worse
Head Blown Off
That’s John Colley
He Was Approached
Who Was He
Welcome, Says Skeleton
Raymundo
Raymundo, Say You Love Me
Note from the Author
SAN FERNANDEZ BEAT (1992)
Ginsberg’s on the Phone Again
Next Time I Come to Visit
Mr. Martinez Is Quite a Character
“How Do You Do It?” I Ask
Mr. Martinez Always Has
Alfred’s on the Phone Again
Contents ix Alfred, If I Don’t Find Him
I Drop In on Alfred
As Poets Get Older They
I’m Invited
I Keep Wondering When Fulgenzi
Alfred’s Getting Famous
Dream of Old Peruvian Days
I Wake Up 000 Alfred’s Turned Artist, Not
Note from the Author
BEYOND NAGEEZI
1.
I Have Come a Long Way
Datura
I Wander in the Desert
I Hesitate Before a Severed
Each Second Lengthens the Distance
The Cactus Have Taken Steps
I Walk Out into the Desert
Flowers Blooming
I Moved to the Desert
She Picked the Cactus
2.
Between Yeso and Fort Sumner
Clovis
End of the Columbus Day Weekend
For Miles There Is Nothing
Slower Than Anything
What Was There to Do on the Plains
Tonight the Moon Is Lost
We Looked Under the Sofa Cushions
You Loved to Dance
Waltzing
3.
At Night These
There Is an Ancient Belief
I Climbed a High Hill
I Stepped Outside
Walking Down
Spiders Scurry
A Few Heavy Raindrops
4.
In the Late Afternoon
I Opened My Window
Clouds Are Moving
The Wind Is Knocking
Winter Has Arrived
After the Sun Sets
I Follow Dark Winter Birds
Scraping Off the Ice
Moon and River
5.
Drawing Up the Blinds
Yesterday As I Drove Past
Seeing You from a Distance
When You Were Living
Walking Through the Forest
Returning to Los Alamos
The Night Pulsates
6.
Another Cold Night
Was It Fall 000 You’re in the Yard
7.
Chaco Canyon
The Mountains Call Me
I Skirt the Bisti
There Is No Sound Here
Silence Exists Here
Beyond Nageezi
For Lame Deer (Sioux Medicine Man)
A Remembered Dream: Thoughts on Becoming a Writer
Acknowledgments

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