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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 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 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 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).
Victor di Suvero (1927-2021) was a poet and recipient of the 2019 Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts. He has participated in bringing poetry and literature to the people for nearly 80 years in his role as poet, publisher and community organizer. His more recent poetry books include Harvest Time (2001), Spring Again (2005), Moving On (2007), A Gathering (2010), Considering (2012), Still Here (2014), and Once Again (2016). Spring Again was awarded the Independent Publishers Association Bronze Medal in 2007. He has edited several anthologies including ¡Saludos!, the first bilingual collection of the poetry of New Mexico, and We Came to Santa Fe (2009), which was awarded a 2009 Southwest Book Design and Production Award by the New Mexico Book Association. di Suvero was a key force in founding several important and long-standing literary organizations and programs in New Mexico including the Poetry in the Schools program, New Mexico Book Association, PEN New Mexico, New Mexico Literary Arts, and the Live Poets Society. As the director of the National Poetry Association he assisted in establishing National Poetry Week, which has now grown into National Poetry Month and celebrated across the country.
![Dark clouds cover the sky as rays of sunlight break through, creating shafts of light and shadow across the cloudscape. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/iStock-1169372449-1-400x225.jpg)
By Various Authors Did We Come Here? By Victor di Suvero How did we come here and to what end?What was it that drew us here?Was it the land calling, the piñon?The great shaped clouds blessing the blue of the sky?Was it the dawn’s quiet or the other one,The one that comes from the day of work, at duskIn summer, promising rest and respite and allThe other good things we dream of when we let ourselves do so?How did we come here?
