Born in Tijuana, Mexico, Blas Manuel De Luna worked alongside his parents and siblings in California’s agricultural fields while he was growing up in Madera, California. His first book, Bent To Earth, a 2006 National Book Critics Circle finalist, reflects on those experiences. In a Poetry profile, De Luna comments on the autobiographical tone of his poems, stating, “I’m not by nature the kind of person who reveals himself, but it just kind of happens in the poems—the willingness to go to the place where you’re revealed, but always in service of the poem, never in a purging kind of way.”