Paige Buffington Wins the 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize

Home Is the Navajo Nation in ‘From 20 Miles Outside of Gallup, Holbrook, Winslow, Farmington, or Albuquerque’—A Place That Pushes and Pulls Its People

Paige Buffington is the winner of the 12th annual Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize for “From 20 Miles Outside of Gallup, Holbrook, Winslow, Farmington, or Albuquerque.” Her prose poem evokes the light, the seasons, the sounds, the colors, and the push and pull of her home, the Navajo Nation, where Buffington grew up, and where she still lives and teaches elementary school. Though the poem’s story opens in 1962, its narrative is timeless and intergenerational; whether it’s to fight a war or get an education or fall in love, the …

The 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize Celebrates Poems of Place | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize Celebrates Poems of Place

No-Fee Contest Submissions Accepted November 2022–January 2023

Since 2012, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize has recognized the U.S. writer of a poem that best evokes a connection to place. Zócalo is currently accepting submissions. The deadline …

Heather McGhee Offers a New Story of American Solidarity

The 2022 Zócalo Book Prize Winner Sees Hope Beyond America’s ‘Zero-Sum’ Mindset

The 2022 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize event’s return to in-person programming for the first time in three years—and the hopeful chord struck by the winning author—arrived at the ASU …

Chelsea Rathburn Wins the 2022 Zócalo Poetry Prize

The Georgia Poet Laureate’s ‘8 a.m., Ocean Drive’ Captures an Early Morning in Miami, Where She Is Neither Tourist Nor Citizen

Chelsea Rathburn is the 11th annual winner of the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize for “8 a.m., Ocean Drive,” which brings us to the streets of Miami’s South Beach in …

This Radical, Revolutionary Nation of Immigrants | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

This Radical, Revolutionary Nation of Immigrants

Zócalo Book Prize Winner Jia Lynn Yang Chronicles the Changing Tides of American Identity

The 2021 Zócalo Public Square Book and Poetry Prize winners, Jia Lynn Yang and Angelica Esquivel, are creators of works that find the humanity in two of Zócalo’s favorite subjects: …

Announcing the 10th Annual Zócalo Poetry Prize Honorable Mentions | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Announcing the 10th Annual Zócalo Poetry Prize Honorable Mentions

Our Favorite Poems About Place Search for Home, for Meaning, for Companionship, and for the Past

For ten years, the Zócalo Poetry Prize has recognized the U.S. poem that best evokes a connection to place. Thanks to Tim Disney’s generous sponsorship of our 2021 Book and …