Professor's book of poetry chosen for Library of Congress festival
Alberto Ríos, ASU professor and Arizona’s inaugural poet laureate, has had his book of poetry, “Every Sound Is Not a Wolf,” chosen for inclusion in the “Great Reads from Great Places” list for the 2026 Library of Congress National Book Festival. Photo by Deanna Dent/ASU
Editor's note: This story is part of our coverage for America's semiquincentennial.
As America comes together to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary this summer, a work that pays tribute to Arizona’s own unique history will be highlighted as part of the celebrations.
“Every Sound Is Not a Wolf,” written by inaugural Arizona poet laureate Alberto Ríos, director of Arizona State University’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, was chosen by the Arizona Center for the Book to be included in the “Great Reads from Great Places” list for the 2026 Library of Congress National Book Festival in late August in Washington, D.C.
The festival is part of the Library of Congress’s celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial, America 250: It’s Your Story.
Written entirely in couplets, Ríos said that the work is shaped by Arizona’s Sonoran Desert — the borderlands, languages and communities — and explores the connections between people and nature, life and death, and spirit and body.
ASU voices in Netflix series
Alberto Ríos isn't the only ASU expert involved with Netflix's new “The American Experiment” documentary.
Robert J. Miller, the Jonathan and Wendy Rose Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at ASU, is a nationally recognized expert in federal Indian law, American Indian economic development and constitutional law. An enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, Miller has spent decades researching the legal and historical relationship between tribal nations and the United States.
In the five-part documentary, Miller offers historical context on the role of Indigenous governments in the shaping of American democracy, treaty-making, and the complex relationship between the United States' democratic ideals and its treatment of Indigenous peoples. Miller serves as chief justice for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
Rios is also part of the recently released Netflix documentary “The American Experiment,” which looks at the history of the rise of our nation. In it, he provides the voice of Benjamin Franklin.
Here, he talks about “Every Sound Is Not a Wolf” and the role of place in his writing.
Note: Answers have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Question: How would you describe the book?
Answer: The book is about a lot of things, as is Arizona. Is it political? Is it nature writing? Is it whatever? It’s probably all those things. Just nothing loudly. It’s a book about the particular way people learn to listen here. That feels exactly right, because place has always been one of my co-authors. I think about the desert or the borderlands, not simply the people but the living sense of it.
Q: As your co-author, what does place say to you?
A: Place is not only a geography. It’s memory, history, language, weather, food, stories and the people who inhabit it. Books help us understand that. They remind us that every place is larger and more complicated than its stereotypes.
Q: So, when you write a book like this, how much of it is based on your own experience living here?
A: It’s all mine. I don’t set out to write about anything. It’s simply organic. What I love about that is it comes from an imagination that could only be created here. It’s from my experiences, my perceptions. ... All my books come back and return to Arizona or childhood or the border or the desert or whatever, because that’s me. Quite honestly, it just comes out of me.
Q: What inspires you about Arizona?
A: Well, this is going to sound so odd, but many times it’s irritations. It’s too hot. What is that border fence doing there? What are we thinking? Where have our brains all gone? It’s all such unnecessary stuff up here when down here people have to eat lunch on Thursday. I don’t write about them in the sense of irritation, but they lead me toward why we want to have lunch on a Thursday. Let’s get down to living and not pushing each other around.
Q: How can poetry teach us how to connect with place?
A: Poetry slows us down long enough to notice things. And in a fast and noisy culture, that act of attention becomes increasingly valuable. So poetry reminds us that understanding begins with listening, and with seeing and with pausing long enough to do that. And the desert seems like it’s on this long pause, right? It’s not the active, constructive world. The cities are, but not the desert. You can go to Wikipedia and find all the big things about Arizona, but I think my love — and my job, as I see it — is to find the smallest things that are equal to those big things.
Q: What do you hope this book communicates to readers who have never been to Arizona?
A: I hope readers come away with a little more attentiveness to the world, not just Arizona. I hope they leave remembering that not every sound is a wolf. Sometimes, what we hear in the dark is simply the world asking us to listen more carefully.
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