My Nature is Hunger: New and Selected Poems, 1989 2004

My Nature is Hunger is the first poetry collection in five years by this major award-winning Latino author. It includes selections from his previous books, Poems Across the Pavement, The Concrete River, and Trochemoche, and 26 new poems that reflect his increasingly global view, his hard-won spirituality, and his movement toward reconciliation with his family and his past.

Though Rodrguez is the most authentic voice of the barrio, many reviewers have commented on the universality of his work.

The son of Mexican immigrants, Luis J. Rodrguez grew up in Watts and East Los Angeles. He began writing in his early teens and eventually won national recognition as a poet, journalist, fiction writer, children's book writer, and critic. He is currently working as a peacemaker among gangs on a national and international level. After spending 15 years in Chicago, Rodrguez returned with his family to Los Angeles, where he helped create Tia Chucha's Caf & Centro Cultural, a multi-arts, multimedia cultural center in the northeast San Fernando Valley.