The University of Arizona Press
Date: Saturday, August 23, 2025
Time: 3-5 p.m., MST
Where: Arizona Humanities House, 1242 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ
Amber McCrary will read from and talk about her latest collection Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert, at the Arizona Humanities House in Phoenix. Blue Corn Tongue is the August book for the Reading Is Medicine Book Club. The event is free and open to the public.
The Reading Is Medicine Book Club recognizes that storytelling has always been a healing practice and that reading is good medicine, both individually and collectively. The Reading Is Medicine Book Club was established almost 10 years ago by Diné women, Bobbi Rose Nez and Tamara Littlesalt-Butler. The group meets bi-monthly to discuss book selections by Indigenous authors.
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.
