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Chaco Canyon is once again threatened (as it perpetually is) by forces looking to disregard the cultural and historical importance of the region to Puebloan and other Indigenous peoples, as well as to all New Mexicans.
V. B. Price has long written about this place as an anthropologist, a journalist, and a poet. Now, he returns with a new and urgent suite of poems for Chaco. These are here included alongside his archival work, previously published as Chaco Trilogy (consisting of Chaco Body, Chaco Elegies, and Chaco Mind).
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Praise for Chaco Now: New and Archival Poems
“Few of us know the splendor of a grand and difficult journey that leaves us refreshed at the end, ready to go forward again, as V. B. Price does. A great and ongoing adventure of the spirit is recorded here, and we can offer high praise in return for the rare gift of understanding and love of place that a wise and devoted guide, sure-footed always, offers in all our names.” —Lucile Adler, author of Amulet Songs: Poems Selected and New
“For V. B. Price, the power of Chaco Canyon is irresistible. In this collection of poems, he penetrates the mysteries of the ancient people who built the splendid Chacoan towns and departed. The haunting echoes of their voices linger below the canyon cliffs and around the shoulders of Fajada Butte, and poets like Price hear them as ‘lullabies in the night.’” —Marc Simmons, author of New Mexico: An Interpretive History
“These writings are very healing, to both memory and spirit. I am reminded of the space of beingness where time remains both changed and unchanged—and through these words, I sense that I am in that space. Not just because I am a direct descendant of the Chacoans but because I am a breathing being with capabilities to take in the land, the place—the memory of existence.” —Rina Swentzell, author of Younger-Older Ones: Tieu-Paadeh Ing
“For many of us, Chaco is the middle of the world: a broad canyon where in remote memory people built great houses aligned with the movements of the cosmos. A quarter century ago, V. B. Price lifted its veil of mystery in his magnificent Chaco Trilogy. Today he adds a whole new series of poems … Price as journalist [is] warning us of the imminent threat to this unique spot.” —Margaret Randall,
author of The Calendar’s Whim
About V. B. Price
V. B. Price has been working, as he says, to repair his ignorance since he came to New Mexico in 1958 at the age of eighteen. He studied anthropology and philosophy at the University of New Mexico and has been publishing poetry since 1962. He’s worked continuously as a reporter and an environmental and political columnist for nearly as long. His column currently runs at mercmessenger.com. He had the great privilege of teaching at UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning and in UNM’s Honors College for more than three decades. In 2021, he received the New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award for contributions to the life of the poetry community in New Mexico and the Southwest. He lives in Albuquerque.