Joseph Rios
Poet Laureate of Fresno, California, 2023–2025
Joseph Rios was born in the San Joaquin Valley in 1987. He is a Xicano writer and the author of Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations (Omnidawn, 2017), winner of a 2018 American Book Award.
A Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, Rios is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from Community of Writers, CantoMundo, Letras Latinas, and the California Arts Council.
Rios lives on Yokuts land in Fresno, California, where he serves as poet laureate. In 2024, he received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.