This collection contains poems composed during the years 1925 through 1932 and gathered privately by the poet Fray (or Friar) Angélico Chávez of New Mexico who gained wide renown as an artist and man of letters.
Written in English (save for a handful composed in Latin and Spanish), these poems were grouped by Fray Angélico himself under the headings of Cantares de Cibola (verse on Southwestern themes); Cantares de María (poems about and to the Virgin Mary); Cantares Franciscanos (on St. Francis and the Franciscan order); and Cantares Varios (on diverse subjects, primarily religious but including, for example, a “Sonnet on Reading Macbeth” and the lyric “To a Diminutive Chickadee”). Longer works in the collection include “A Litany of Pueblos” and the six-part “Vignettes from the Life of Saint Anthony.”
