The University of Arizona Press
February 5, 2025
KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger interviewed Amber McCrary, author of Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert. In the interview titled “Navajo zinester releases her first poetry book, exploring the significance of blue corn,” McCrary spoke about inspirations for her latest collection of poetry.
She said, “I would say this book is my desert love poem book. It’s a love story between the writer and the muse. And the writer is coming from a point of view from a Dine perspective and a blue corn perspective or a juniper tree perspective or a Colorado plateau perspective. And from these perspectives, they’re looking at their muse, who is a saguaro or the Sonoran Desert or white corn.”
Listen to the full interview here, or read the transcript.
About the book:
In a voice that is jubilant, irreverent, sometimes scouring, sometimes heartfelt, and always unmistakably her own, Amber McCrary remaps the deserts of Arizona through the blue corn story of a young Diné woman figuring out love and life with an O’odham man. Reflecting experiences of Indigenous joy, pain, and family, these shapeshifting poems celebrate the love between two Native partners, a love that flourishes alongside the traumas they face in the present and the past. From her ethereal connection with her saguaro muse, Hosh, to the intricate tapestry of her relationships with Diné relatives and her awakening to the complex world of toxic masculinity, McCrary brings together DIY zine aesthetics, life forms of juniper and mountains, and the beauty of Diné Bizaad to tell of the enduring bonds between people and place.
