Francisco X. Alarcón

Francisco Xavier Alarcón (21 February 1954 – 15 January 2016) was an American Chicano poet and educator. He was one of the few Chicano poets to have "gained recognition while writing mostly in Spanish" within the United States. His poems have been also translated into Irish and Swedish.

Life Alarcón was born in Wilmington, California and had four brothers and two sisters.

As a young adult, he moved back to the Los Angeles area. He received his high school diploma from Cambria Adult School. During this time, he went to East Los Angeles College. During college, he started writing poetry, belonged to many literary circles in the area and also read his poetry out loud at various venues. In 1982, while on a Fulbright Fellowship to Mexico City, Alarcón discovered Aztec incantations translated by a Mexican priest . The investigation itself was considered "discriminatory." Others questioned the police department's actions and felt that they were also homophobic. Legal defense funds were raised, with Margarita Luna Robles organizing and leading the cause. Together, they published a collection of poetry titled Ya Vas Carnal. and is the co-author of Mundo 21, a Spanish-language method published by Cengage Learning. Mundo 21 is considered the best Spanish textbook on the market. Prompted by the response to this poem, he created a Facebook group called "Poets Responding to SB 1070", which grew to include over 1200 poems and received over 600,000 hits. An anthology of poems from the group is being prepared for publication.

Alarcón judged the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.

He lived in Davis, California. He died of cancer on 15 January 2016.

Poetry Alarcón wrote poetry in English, Spanish and Nahuatl, often presented to the reader in a bilingual format. However, his choices of words, short lines and stanzas were very deliberate. He did not use periods in his writing because he felt his poems were an extension of his life and a period would indicate the end, or his death. Connection to his culture and language, both Spanish and English were important to him. He started writing poetry for children in 1997 when he realized there were very few books for children written by Latino poets. He has been praised for his depictions of Latino culture in his poetry for children. His children's poetry reflects a "genuine warmth and sense of play." Much of it is autobiographical, touching on his memories of his own childhood in such a way that helps children connect to their own family experiences. His descriptions of food are another universal theme that all children can relate to. 1993 American Book Award 1993 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award 1997 Pura Belpré Honor Award by the American Library Association 1998 Carlos Pellicer-Robert Frost Poetry Honor Award by the Third Binational Border Poetry Contest, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. 2002 Pura Belpré Honor Award, Danforth and Fulbright fellowships 2002 Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association (BABRA)

Works Tattoos, Oakland: Nomad Press, 1985 Ya Vas, Carnal, San Francisco 1985 Loma Prieta, Santa Cruz: We Press 1990 Body in Flames/Cuerpo en llamas, San Francisco: Chronicle Books 1990 De amor oscuro/Of Dark Love, Santa Cruz: Moving Parts Press 1991 Cuerpo en llamas/Kropp i lågor, Lysekil, Sweden: Fabians Förlag 1991 Cuerpo en llamas / Colainn ar bharr lasrach, Indreabhán, Ireland:Cló Iar-Connachta Teo 1992 Poemas zurdos, Mexico City: Editorial Factor 1992

De amor oscuro/Vin an ngrá dorcha, Indreabhán, Ireland: Cló Iar-Connachta Teo, 1992 No Golden Gate for Us, Tesuque, New Mexico: Pennywhistle Press, 1993, Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes / Sonetos a la locura y otras penas, Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 2001,

Ce Uno One: Poems for the New Sun / Poemas para el Nuevo Sol, Sacramento: Scythe Press 2010,