The University of Arizona Press
May 1, 2026
Please join us in celebrating the news that Amber McCrary’s Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert has been shortlisted for a Reading the West Book Award in the Poetry category!
Being selected for the shortlist means that Blue Corn Tongue will be promoted extensively to the media, to over 350,000 bookstore customers, and to booksellers throughout the region.
You can help support Amber by voting for her book and sharing the news! Voting ends on May 31, so we encourage members of the public—poetry lovers, bibliophiles, friends, family, and colleagues—to vote now for Blue Corn Tongue on the Reading the West website.
About Blue Corn Tongue:
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.
Blue Corn Tongue is part of the University of Arizona Press’s Sun Tracks Series. Launched in 1971, Sun Tracks was one of the first publishing programs to focus exclusively on the creative works of Native Americans. The series has included more than eighty volumes of poetry, prose, art, and photography by such distinguished artists as Joy Harjo, N. Scott Momaday, Simon J. Ortiz, Carter Revard, and Luci Tapahonso.
Congratulations to Amber!
