We Became As Mountains: Poems of the Spanish Conquest

Nancy Wood’s WE CAME AS MOUNTAINS is a tour de force of narrative poetry. In the tradition of Stephen Vincent Benet and Derek Walcott, she tells the story of the Pueblo Indians from the time of creation to the building of the first atomic bomb. Influenced by thirty years of listening to the stories of tribal elders, Wood’s searing language and impeccable structure present a highly charged account of pain and triumph, of loss and survival. Written in four parts, WE CAME AS MOUNTAINS begins with a Puebloan creation myth: The first sounds of the universe were footsteps, though human beings were not created yet. The footsteps went from star to star, wearing a pathway of potential through the sky.These haunting words lay the groundwork for all that follows – the conquest and exploitation of the Indians by Europeans, Indian revolt, and, finally, the courage of the Pueblo people as they wait for their stories to come full circle. This powerful book is storytelling and mythmaking at its best.

Nancy Wood is a novelist, children’s book author, photographer, and poet. She is the author of thirty-two books, many of them about the Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. These include such best-selling titles as MANY WINTERS and SPIRIT WALKER. Wood is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, the Lee Bennett Hopkins poetry award, two Mountains and Plains Booksellers awards, and the Frank Waters Lifetime Achievement Award. She makes her home near Santa Fe.