When I moved back to New Mexico in 2010, I decided I wanted to write about my childhood places. But I was looking for models, both literary and visual. I went digging around for any examples I could find:
– Art and poetry books from the library
– Finding books online
– Books picked up at local museums, historic sites and bookstores
– Following all the trails from all those books above
I’ve long thought about creating a page of New Mexico books (starting with the ones on my bookshelf) and how this might be helpful for anyone else who intends to paint or write about this unusal place.
One thing I learned early on was how multi-cultural the state has always been, not just due to recent re-evaluation of the canon. You still might find an all-gringo anthology here or there. The Santa Fe artists influx of the early 1900s (of which the painter Cady Wells work pictured above is a part), was pretty white. But for the most part, Diné (Navajo), various Apache nations, many pueblos and the immigrant Hispanic, but also European, black and Asian poets have co-mingled in this space for hundreds of years and the poetry represents both their diversity and similarity.
New Mexico Anthologies
The Turquoise Trail, An Anthology of New Mexico Poetry (1928)
Compiled by Alice Corbin Henderson, this anthology contains poetry from the time of the Santa Fe Writers Era (see below), poets like Mary Austin, Witter Bynner, Willa Cather, Alice Corbin, Arthur Davidson Ficke, John Gould Fletcher, Marsden Hartley, Willard Johnson, D. H. Lawrence, Vachel Lindsay, Haniel Long, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Edgar Lee Masters, Harriet Monroe, Margaret Pond, Lynn Riggs, Carl Sandburg and Yvor Winters.
Turquoise Land, Anthology of New Mexico Poetry (1974)
The New Mexico State Poetry Society created an anthology of poets like Fray Angelico Chavez, Peggy Pond Church, N. Scott Momaday, V.B. Price and Leo Romero.
Sandscript, An Anthology of New Mexico Poetry (1976)
New Mexico State Poetry Society is at it again with more current and unknown poets. I have dog-earred Leo Romero (Las Cruces) and Ken Saville (Albuquerque).
New Mexico Poetry Renaissance (1994)
This more recent anthology includes poets like Jimmy Santiago Baca, John Brandi, Ana Castillo, Denise Chavez, Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Margaret Randall, V.B. Price, Arthur Sze. This book has a good introduction and gives an overview of the big hitters and local themes. Poets I dog-eared for further study: John Brandi, Martin Edmunds, Elizabeth Searle Lamb, Joan Logghe, Demetria Martiniez, Carol Moldaw, V. Price (long before I went through a Vincent Price obsession ((during COVID)) and learned he was Vincent Price’s son).
In Company, an Anthology of New Mexico Poets After 1960 (2004)
This one is a big boy with a full history of the state’s poets, including Robison Jeffers, Wittery Byner, Rudolfo Anaya, Simon Ortiz, Margaret Randall, N. Scott Momaday, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Arthur Sze, V. B. Price, John Brandi. I noted Price again, Robinson Jeffers’ “New Mexico Mountain,” the remythologizing work of Rudolfo Anaya, Judyth Hill writing about the bosque, Joan Logghe about Espanola. Other names I wrote down to peruse: Toadhouse, Leo Romero, J.B. Bryan, Rebecca Seiferle, Demetria Martinez, Lisa Gill, Traci Paris and Mark Ivy.
A WordPress Anthology (2012)
New Mexico Poetry Anthology (2023) – current poets from this article:
https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/blog/post/poetry-of-place-from-new-mexico-poetry-anthology-2023/
Anthologies of a Specific Location
Valmora (date unknown)
Poems about the tubuculosis sanatorium at Valmora (in a small press run from a Las Vegas project endowment)
Un Campesino En El Sol by Rafael Lobato (2000)
A El Rancho de las Golondrinas chapbook about a local poet (1927-1993)
Open-Hearted Horizon, an Albuquerque Poetry Anthology (2024)
With poets like Margaret Randall, Michelle Otero, Valerie Martinez, Hakim Bellamy, me!!, V.B. Price, Don McIver, Bill O’Neill, and Joy Harjo,
Cowboy Poetry
Charles Badger Clark, Jr, Sun and Saddle Leather (1915)
Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp (1919)
Rope and Pan, Martha Downer Ellis (1969)
She writes about the Bell Ranch area.
New Cowboy Poetry, A Contemporary Gathering (1990)
Cowboy Love Poetry (1994)
Ranges from contemporary poets to poets back to the late 1800s.
Cowboy Poetry Matters, From Abilene to the Mainstream (2000)
Contemporary cowboy poets and a few essays in the back defending the genre.
Vaguely Western Anthologies
Everyman’s Poems of the American West (2002)
Mostly California poets but some from other states, including N. Scott Momaday and poets of the Santa Fe Writers Era like Robert Frost, Witter Bynner, Robison Jeffers. There’s a section of “tribal poems.”
Place as Purpose, Poetry from the Western States (2002)
Not a lot of New Mexico-ness here as this was a Los Angeles festival from 2002 so many of the poets are Californian.
New Poets of the American West (2010)
Another big boy, with poets organized by state. There are 18 New Mexico poets including Jimmy Santiago Baca, Jon Davis and Arthur Sze (who both taught at IAIA), Joy Harjo, Joan Logghe, Carol Moddaw Leo Romero. I’ve also dog-earred Michael Pettit’s poem “Sparrow of Espanola.”
Native American Anthologies
Songs From This Earth on Turtle’s Back (1983)
A bit outdated in style and tone, but a good survey of poets across the United States including the New Mexico nations of Diné. (Navajo), Laguna, Santa Domingo, Acoma, and historic plains tribe visitors, like Kiowa. Famous poets include Leslie Silko (Laguna) and Simon Ortiz (Acoma) and N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and Joy Harjo (who spent years in Albuquerque as a student at UNM).
New Poets of Native Nations (2018)
A really great anthology of contemporary work from poets like Lali Long Soldier, Tommy Pico, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Craig Santos Perez, Brandy Nalani McDouggall, M.L. Smoker and Karenne Wood.
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, a Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (2020)
A great national survey edited by Joy Harjo and separated by region and year from 1889 to 1991. Includes New Mexico poets from Laguna, Acoma, Diné and Mescalero Apache.
Living Nations, Living Words, An Anthology of First People’s Poetry (2021)
A slim volume produced by Joy Harjo as part of her work as the National Poet Laureate.
Georgia O’Keeffe Poets
Yes, there is a sub-genre of poets who just wrote about Georgia O’Keeffe around the time she lived in New Mexico.
– O’Keeffe, Days in a Life, C.S. Merrill (1995)
– Pelvis with Distance, Jessica Jacobs (2015)
– Blossoms & Bones, On the Life and Work of Georgia O’Keeffe, Christopher Buckley (son of William F. Buckley) (1989)
New Mexico Poets
This list will grow but includes New Mexico poets (or poets writing about New Mexico) I have enjoyed.
Jimmy Santiago Baca (Albuquerque)
- Singing at the Gates, Selected Poems (2014)
- Selected Poems of Jimmy Santiago Baca (1987)
Carrie Fountain (Las Cruces), Burn Lake (2010)
Stephen James (Arizona and New Mexico), Words from the Peaks, collected haiku (1998-2004)
Valerie Martinez (Santa Fe)
- And They Called It Horizon (2010)
Pat Mora (Santa Fe)
- Agua Santa, Holy Water (1995)
- Aunt Carmen’s Book of Practical Saints (1997)
- Adobe Odes (2006)
Nora Naranjo-Morse (Espanola)
- Mud Woman, Poems from the Clay (1992)
James Thomas Stevens (Santa Fe, professor at IAIA)
- Combing the Snakes from His Hair (2002)
- Bulle/Chimere (2006)
The City of Albuquerque Series:
- Bill O’Neill, The Definition of Empty (2021)
- Michelle Otero, Bosque Poems (2021)
- Hakim Bellamy, Commissions y Corridos (2021)
The Santa Fe Writers Era (1916-1941)
This was a period where an influx of writers and painters came to Taos and Santa Fe from the north and east because they were either fleeing industrialization in big cities or visiting tuberculosis sanatoriums around the area, like Alice Corbin, a former co-editor for Harriet Monroe’s Poetry magazine in Chicago. She started a genuine exodus from Chicago, New York and Colorado. Mabel Dodge came too and brought out many famous artists like D.H. Lawrence, Jean Toomer and Georgia O’Keeffe.
Alice Corbin Henderson, Red Earth (1920)
Witter Bynner, The Selected Witter Bynner: Poems, Plays, Translations, Prose, and Letters (1995)
John Gould Fletcher, Selected Poems of John Gould Fletcher (1988)
Fray Angelico Chavez (Wagon Mound)
- Selected Poems (1969)
- When the Santos Talked (1977)
Spud Johnson & Laughing Horse (1994)
A collection of prose, poetry and history from the journal Laughing Horse.
New Mexico State Library’s List
Poets Who Wrote About New Mexico or Spent Limited Time in New Mexico
- Robert Creeley
- D.H. Lawrence
- Bob Dylan
- Jim Morrison
Essays About Southwestern Art and Literature:
Santa Fe & Taos, The Writer’s Era, 1916-1941 by Marta Weigle and Kyle Fiore
This book tells the history of that writer and artists influx started by Alice Corbin Henderson and Mabel Dodge Luhan, including a roster of writers like Willa Cather, Mary Austin, Witter Bynner, Vachel Lindsay, John Gould Fletcher, Carl Sandburg, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, Spud Johnson, Robert Frost, Lynn Riggs, Peggy Pond Church, Fray Angelico Chavez, Harriet Monroe, D.H. Lawrence and Zane Grey.
The Southwest in American Literature and Art, The Rise of the Desert Aesthetic by David W. Teague
The Desert is No Lady, Southwestern Landscapes in Women’s Writing and Art (1987)
Art Books to Help Conceptualize New Mexican Themes
We have lots of Georgia O’Keefe books in the house because for years my husband worked security at the The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe and I collected the books of all the shows he guarded. Of those many books, these are the ones that exclusively deal with New Mexico imagery:
– Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico, A Sense of Place (2004)
– Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico, Architectures, Katsinam, and the Land (2012)
– Georgia O’Keeffe and the Camera, The Art of Identity (2008)
Other local artists and survey books I’ve found useful:
Indian Country, The Art of David Bradley (2014)
One of my favorite New Mexico painters
The Artistic Odyssey of Higinio V. Gonzales, A Tinsmith and Poet in Territorial New Mexico (2015)
Tradiciones Nuevomexicana, Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico (2001)
Navajo Long Walk by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by Shonto Begay (2002)
The Begay murals at Fort Sumner’s Bosque del Redondo museum may have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.
The Modern West, American Landscapes, 1990-1950 (2006)
A great book from a show originally organized by LACMA in Los Angeles that shows New Mexico’s best painters and visiting artists.
Cady Wells and Southwestern Modernism (2009)
Also one of my favorite New Mexico painters.
Cezanne and American Modernism (2009)
Cezanne’s surprising influence on those ew Mexico painters in the books listed above.