The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, February 27, 2025
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., MST
Where: Hayden Library, Arizona State University, 300 E Orange St., Tempe, AZ
Amber McCrary, author of Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert, and Kinsale Drake, author of The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket, will talk about their books at Hayden Library, Arizona State University. The Labriola National American Indian Data Center brings these two indigenous authors to the ASU campus.
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.
