Simon Joseph Ortiz, born in 1941 and raised for the most part near his home pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico, is an internationally known Native American poet, short-story writer, essayist, editor, social activist, and educator. In all these roles, he is a teacher, an elder.

Ortiz's parents were both fluent in English, but his first language was the Keres spoken at Acoma and several other New Mexican pueblos. Some of his poetry follows Keresan oral tradition, incorporating song, chant, and storytelling structures - a good source to consult on this is Robin Riley Fast's chapter “Telling Stories” in The Heart as a Drum (1999). Even though Ortiz recounts many old-time stories and songs, and is a lyric poet of the natural world, he is at the same time a realistic chronicler of the recent history of ordinary people, Indian and Non-Indian alike, living on and off reservations, and their struggles concerning labor, health, environment, class, race, and the politics that often pass them by. He reproduces flawlessly the rhythms and nuances of talk overheard around the United States in bus depots, bars, street corners, rehab centers, and other deeply American locales. As he says,

Ortiz has many stories, but as he writes in A Good Journey (1977), his second full-length book of poems, his home is the source of his narratives. Though most readers find his work accessible, it may help to know something about Acoma Pueblo’s history and environs. Old Acoma Pueblo, nicknamed by Anglo tourism promoters “Sky City,” is a town of two- and three-story stone and mortar houses built atop a pale 350-foot mesa. It rises from a high desert plain strewn with smaller monolithic formations.