How fortunate for Chicago that Carlos Cortéz (1923-2005), born in Milwaukee to a German immigrant activist and a Mexican-Nahuatl father, decided to live, work, and die here. How fortunate for Cortéz that his parents, both workers and both political activists from the socialist and anarchist movements, always found the money for notebooks and art supplies and encouraged his creative work. Following in their footsteps he left a huge legacy as a labor organizer, political activist, cultural innovator, visual and word artist. His wood and linoleum prints are in the permanent collections of museums such as, the National Museum of Mexican Art, MoMA, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Smithsonian. The murals in Pilsen owe their existence to artists like Cortéz who wanted to display their indigenous and Latinx identity on the skin of their buildings. He was here to protest the deep communal wound inflicted upon the immigrant neighborhoods and Black communities when the Congress Expressway slashed its way through the city's west side. Urban renewal and the University of Illinois Chicago campus further displaced the working poor and middle-class immigrants of that area. The poetry of Carlos Cortéz, however, has not been as widely divulgated. Coyote's Song, represents a significant achievement and something that poetry and art lovers will want to add to their collections. And how fortunate that current Chicago artists and activists have collaborated to curate and comment on his life and work. Poet Carlos Cumpián, artist Rene Arceo, labor organizer and former academic, David Ranney, and Fred Sasaki, Creative Director at the Poetry Foundation, have created a handsome book that the late Cortéz would have endorsed. He left his linoleum and wooden blocks to museums with the proviso that the price of prints should always be affordable for working class people. The other strong influence in his work is his love of language. He spoke German and Spanish from with his mother and father. A Nahuatl spiritual leader gave him the name Koyokokuitl which means Coyote Song. In "Empty House Blues" his dogs (izkuintlis) are his loyal companions: "Yo sé que los izkuintlis keep me company/But they lack that certain algo." His "Macuilhaicuh (Cinco Haiku Chicanos) are in Spanish and since they were not translated, I'll try my hand at one: ¡Órale chapulínCántame más¡Y deja mi lechuga! Hey now grasshopper!Sing for me moreAnd leave my lettuce alone!