Jai Hamid Bashir Wins Zócalo’s Ninth Annual Poetry Prize

In ‘Little Bones,’ a Girl Considers a Utah Sunset, Intoxicated on ‘Untold Plans for Eternity’

Since 2012, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize has been awarded annually to the U.S. poem that best evokes a connection to place. This year, talking about “place”—a concept always open to interpretation—feels particularly poignant as people around the world must now consider its physical constraints and vast virtual possibilities as many of us stay home, in fixed spaces, to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The submissions for 2020 (which came from as far away as Doha, Qatar) dove deep into the meaning of place to explore literal, fictional, and metaphorical …

Electrical Fire At 3AM (as Mercury Stations Direct) | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Electrical Fire At 3AM (as Mercury Stations Direct)

for Panella

It was too generous for gunshots,
too casual for fireworks. Our house
sparked once, then oncetwice, oncetwice.

Fire. In this day and age. Livid
until we understood, we rose …

Lauren Gives Me Directions | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Lauren Gives Me Directions

“Make a left at the second park,
Because you will come across two parks;
The first one is smaller, and there’s a little courtyard in the middle
With an old …

[In the ocean with my brother, I wonder]

In the ocean with my brother, I wonder
if I should make my same old walking
into the ocean joke. “Whelp. I guess
I’ll just keep going. Goodbye.” …

Wanda Coleman’s Roar

I don’t smoke weed, I smoke palm
trees. I rise into clouds like

the 110-105 interchange. I take back
airspace from a LAPD chopper, examining

freeways; concrete ribbons, anchoring our smog
and …

PARKED, TEXAS

Yes—alone, I could stop for anything.
Fossil bed at a river’s wrist. Hello

aoudad on Blue Mountain, javelina
gnawing cactus. Stinky the cat hiding

in a closet. Every bee takes an …