New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs welcomes you to subscribe and support our state’s cultural treasures.
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).
Valerie Martinez (opens in a new tab) is poet, writer, and educator. She was the poet laureate for the City of Santa Fe from 2008 to 2010. She has published six books of poetry and translation, and her work has appeared widely in literary journals and magazines. Her book-length poem, Each and Her (winner of the 2011 Arizona Book Award), was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
![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?
![Two women in dark clothing walk through a scrubby landscape while men, horses, and a horse-drawn coach are visible in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/This-is-how-it-Began_2-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
BY VALERIE MARTÍNEZ The cyclone leaves blood on the land— hoof prints, imprints of heeled boots, sounds twisting the tongue: caballo, tierra, oro, alma, villa de santa fé. [wonderplugin_slider id="104"] (more…)
