The University of Arizona Press

Born in 1950 in Chacón, New Mexico, poet Leo Romero is considered a foundational figure of Latino letters. He holds an MA in English from New Mexico State University. He has worked for the Social Security Administration and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since 1988, he has been a bookseller in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He’s had five different bookstores at different times. His current bookstore is Books of Interest. Romero has published six books of poetry and a book of short fiction, Rita and Los Angeles. Romero’s poetry has been published in Italy, Germany, and Mexico. The Group Theatre Company in Seattle, Washington, produced a play called I Am Celso, based on poems from Romero’s books Celso and Agua Negra and performed it across the country. Romero received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, was a Pushcart Prize winner, and a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation resident at Taos, New Mexico.