Stray Poems opens with San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía's inaugural address, where he provides a brilliant and impassioned poetic account of San Francisco's Native and Latino literary history. What follows is a selection of Murguía's most recent work, composed over the past twelve years. These are poems of the twenty-first century, written in a combination of English and Spanish—the patois of contemporary America. Angry, rebellious, subversive, sentimental, hip, urban, local, global.

Alejandro Murguía is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love, both winners of the American Book Award. He is San Francisco's first Latino Poet Laureate.