A Jury of Trees: Poems

Description

Over 10 years after his death, the Chicano poet Andrés Montoya continues to influence Latino poetry in the US. His first book one the prestigious Chicano Literary Award, but unfortunately he died before it came out. He wouldn’t know that it would go on to win the American Book Award and become one of the most influential books of poetry in Chicano literature, and he would eventually have a major literary prize named after him. Before he died he asked his best friend, fiction writer Daniel Chacón, to manage his work. Chacón spent ten years going through all of Montoya’s manuscripts, journals, notes on napkins and start pieces of papers, and he created this book, which is a sample of the poetry Montoya wrote throughout his lifetime. This is a celebration of the life and work of address Montoya.

About the Author:
Andrés Montoya; Edited by Daniel Chacón

Andrés Montoya is author of the Iceworker Sings and Other Poems, winner of the American Book Award. He died in 1999 before the book came out. He is a graduate from the University of Oregon MFA in Creative Writing. Daniel Chacón is the Author of five books, including “Hotel Juárez,” the novel “and the shadows took him,” as well as the editor of The Last Supper at Chicano Heroes, The Selected Works of Jose Antonio Burciaga. The Icebreaker Sings and Other Poems went on to win the American Book Award. It became a highly influential book of poems for Chicano poets. He has one of the most important Latino poetry prizes named after him. After many years of sifting through all of his the work he left behind, editor Daniel Chacón put together this posthumous collection of poems.