Contributors

For over a century, El Palacio has been a forum for voices exploring New Mexico’s art, archaeology, history, and landscape. Explore the writers, photographers, historians, and scientists whose perspectives have defined the magazine’s pages—past and present.

Arthur Sze

Arthur Sze is the current U.S. Poet Laureate. Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of twelve books, including Into the Hush, Sight Lines, and others. Sze’s poems have been translated into fifteen languages, and he is the recipient of the National Book Award among many other honors. He lives in Santa Fe.

Deborah Jackson Taffa

Deborah Jackson Taffa is a citizen of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo. Her memoir Whiskey Tender was a 2024 National Book Award Finalist and was longlisted for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Taffa serves as the director of the MFA in creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Cara Romero

Cara Romero is an award-winning contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero’s expansive oeuvre has been informed by formal training in film, digital, fine art, and commercial photography. She maintains a studio in Santa Fe, regularly participates in Native American art fairs, and was featured in PBS’ Craft in America (2019).

Jon Davis

Jon Davis (opens in a new tab) is the author of six books of poetry, including An Amiable Reception for the Acrobat (Grid Books, 2019). He has received a Lannan Literary Award, the Lavan Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. He taught creative writing and literature for thirty years, two at Salisbury University and 28 at the Institute of American Indian Arts. In 2013, he founded the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), which he directed until his retirement in 2018. From 2012-2014, he served as the City of Santa Fe’s fourth poet laureate.

A flat-topped hill rises above a gently sloping landscape with scattered trees under a clear blue sky. [gen-ai]

Verses to an Institution

WHAT'S NOT LOST Something happens when there is an absence of foundation there is a direction chosen where heart, intent, and desire, meet intuition—where preservation meets development meets community to set a precedent for instances in which the likes of MOMA follow suit. Architecture and ancient character conversing as if they’re of two different tongues but translation isn’t lost altogether— instead a romantic erosion set in motion a revival that was and remains inherently difficult.