Romero, Leo

Leo Romero was born on September 25, 1950 in the house of his grandparents, Samuel and Adelaida Romero of Chacón, New Mexico. Chacón is a remote northern New Mexican village at the upper end of the Mora valley, seven miles north of Holman, New Mexico. Romero never knew his father and was given his maternal family name. At an early age, he moved with his mother, Ortensia, two brothers and a sister down the valley to Las Vegas, New Mexico where he attended public schools through high school.

In 1969, at the University of New Mexico, noted Native American poet Simon Ortiz encouraged Romero in some of his early writing. His first published poem appeared in a 1971 publication of New Mexico Magazine . The student literary magazine Thunderbird also printed many of his poems. He graduated in 1973 with a B.A. in English and in 1974 began work on a master's program in creative writing at New Mexico State University where he twice served as poetry editor of the magazine Puerto del Sol . Romero earned an M.A. in English in 1981.

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