Watch a performance from the Reading Rockets site: high | low Poet Francisco Alarcón (3:20)

As one of the most prominent Hispanic/Chicano poets in the United States, Alarcón has won numerous awards for his work and was one of the three finalists nominated for the state poet laureate of California in 2002.

His most recent book of bilingual poetry for children titled, Poems to Dream Together / Poemas para soñar juntos, was published by Lee & Low Books, New York, in 2005.

Other titles available at the Library include:

Angels ride bikes and other fall poems / Los angeles andan en bicicleta y otros poemas de otono poemas

From the bellybutton of the moon and other summer poems / Del ombligo de la luna y otros poemas de verano poemas

Iguanas in the snow and other winter poems / Iguanas en la nieve y otros poemas de invierno poemas

Laughing tomatoes and other spring poems / Jitomates risuenos y otros poemas de primavera

In my family/ En mi familia cuadros

Alarcón was born in 1954 and lived the first six years of his life in Wilmington, California. As a child, he also lived in Guadalajara, Mexico, and from the age of 18 he has been living in California. He did his undergraduate studies at California State University, Long Beach, and his graduate studies at Stanford University. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Mission Cultural Center of San Francisco from 1986-1990, and served as its Board President from 1986-1989.  He served as a member of the Board of Directors of Children Book Press from 1998 to 2003. This is a nonprofit press that has published multicultural books for children for more than 25 years in San Francisco, California.
     
Alarcón currently teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program.