This River Here Poems of San Antonio

San Antonio poet laureate Carmen Tafolla captures her hometown—the city of her ancestors for the past three centuries—in poems that celebrate its history as a cosmopolitan multilingual cultural crossroads. Discover San Antonio’s corazón in Tafolla’s poetry, accompanied by historic and contemporary photographs that convey its enduring sense of place. A century ago, San Antonio gave Oscar Wilde “a thrill of strange pleasure.” J. Frank Dobie claimed that “every Texan has two hometowns—his own and San Antonio,” and Will Rogers declared it to be “one of the three unique cities of America.” To Larry McMurtry, “San Antonio has kept an ambiance that all the rest of our cities lack.” Carmen Tafolla calls forth the soul of this place—the holy home of the waters, called Yanaguana by los indios—and celebrates the many cultures that have made of it “un rebozo bordado de culturas y colores.”

Carmen Tafolla is a professor and a writer in residence for Children's, Youth & Transformative Literature at the University of Texas–San Antonio. She is the author of more than 20 books, including Curandera, The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans, Rebozos, Sonnets and Salsa, and Tamales, Comadres, and the Meaning of Civilization, and the recipient of numerous literary honors, including the Américas Award, the Art of Peace Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Award, two Tomás Rivera Mexican–American Book Awards, and two International Latino Book Awards. She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, was named the first poet laureate of San Antonio and was appointed the 2015-2016 Texas State Poet Laureate by the 84th Texas Legislature. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.