CITY OF SANTA BARBARA POET LAUREATE

Announcing the 2023-2025 Poet Laureate: Melinda Palacio

Ms. Palacio, an internationally-lauded poet, author, and speaker, will serve as Santa Barbara’s first Chicana Poet Laureate. Her chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place award. Her novel, Ocotillo Dreams, received the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards, as well as a PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Her full-length poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, received First Prize in Poetry at the International Latino Book Awards. Her work has also been featured on the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day Program. Locally, Melinda received first place in Poetry at the 2003 Santa Barbara Writers Conference.

The City of Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Program was established in 2005 to inspire and remind the local community of the power and beauty of poetry and the spoken word. The Santa Barbara Public Library serves as the official “home” of the Poet Laureate Program and a major partner in the stewardship of this program. Learn more about the library's events supporting literary arts here.

Photo Credit: Nell Campbell

In July 2018, three of our Past Poets Laureate traveled to Ireland! Learn more about their adventure.