Johnny Cordova

Johnny Cordova is a working-class poet and editor from El Cerrito, California. His parents grew up in coal-mining towns along the Purgatory River in southern Colorado and moved to California right before he was born. His father is of Genízaro, Spanish, and Basque ancestry. His mother is Italian.

From 1995 to 2004 Johnny published a number of poems and short stories in small press journals before dropping out of the literary scene. That marked the beginning of a long, soul-searching journey, from which he resurfaced in 2021, upon returning from ten years in Southeast Asia. Recent work has appeared in Salt Hill Journal, the New York Quarterly, Louisiana Literature, Chicago Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.

Johnny lives at Triveni Ashram, in the Arizona high desert, where he and his wife, poet Dominique Ahkong, co-edit Shō Poetry Journal.

Attention small press editors:

I have two manuscripts looking for publishers: What the Fight is For (poems 1994 – 2004) and Ashes (meditations on loss, regret, and impermanence). If you would like to see either one, please get in touch.