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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).
Israel F. Haros Lopez (opens in a new tab) is the founder and art director of the Alas De Agua Collective in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Israel was born in East Los Angeles and brings his firsthand knowledge of the realities of migration and life as a Mexican American to his work as a mentor, educator, art instructor, and activist. He received a degree in English literature and Chicano Studies from the University of California Berkeley and an MFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts. At formal and informal visual art spaces, Israel creates and collaborates in interdisciplinary ways using a variety of mediums.
![Three open books appear to float in midair along a leafy, pergola-covered pathway with sunlight filtering through the foliage. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/iStock_000007235219Medium-400x225.jpg)
Curated by Darry Lorenzo Wellington The poems that I have curated for El Palacio reflect a maxim that branded me with a lasting mark. My instructor at a residency program at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Thomas Sayers Ellis, smilingly explained: “The poem isn’t on the page.” He iterated the pronouncement whenever he encountered a poem that fell flat and lifeless.
