Natalie Scenters-Zapico
Assistant Professor
CONTACT
Office: CPR 311
Phone: N/A
Email
BIO
Natalie Scenters-Zapico is a fronteriza from El Paso, Texas. She is the author of My Perfect Cognate (Copper Canyon Press 2025), Lima :: Lim贸n (Copper Canyon Press 2019), and The Verging Cities (Colorado State University 2015). Winner of Yale University鈥檚 Windham Campbell Prize (2021), her work has been supported by a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation (2018), a Lannan Literary Fellowship (2017), and a CantoMundo Fellowship (2015).
Her first book, The Verging Cities, won the PEN/America Joyce Osterweil Award (2016), the GLCA New Writer's Award (2016), and the Utah Book Award (2016). Her second book, Lima :: Lim贸n, was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize (2020) and shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize (2020). Her books have been reviewed widely in publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, and Publisher's Weekly. Natalie has published her poems in many literary magazines including: The Paris Review, Ploughshares, POETRY, Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, New England Review, The Believer, Buzzfeed News, and Narrative, among others. Her poetry has also been widely anthologized, making appearances in Best American Poetry 2015 and Best American Poetry 2024, among others.
Her most recent nonfiction essay was published in Picturing the Border (Ed. Nadiah Rivera Fellah, Yale University Press 2025), which was published on the occasion of the exhibition by the same title on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art from July 2024-January 2025. Reviews of the book that cite Natalie鈥檚 essay appear in The New York Times and Hyperallergic.
Natalie is faculty in the undergraduate and MFA creative writing programs where she teaches a variety of courses at the undergraduate level ranging from advanced poetry workshops to courses on poetry and the archive. At the graduate level she regularly teaches poetry workshops, and has taught the Literary Editing and Publishing Practicum, as well as special topics classes.
She is Inaugural Director of the Michael Kuperman Memorial Poetry Library at 木瓜视频. Through her work with the MKM Poetry Library she collaborates with 木瓜视频鈥檚 Humanities Institute to curate the Garry Fleming Poetry Series and the Garry Fleming-Key West Literary Workshop Award in Poetry. The Garry Fleming Poetry Series has brought nationally award-winning poets like Ocean Vuong, Alison Rollins, and Dana Levin to 木瓜视频 to engage with graduate students and the public. The Garry Fleming-Key West Literary Workshop Award in Poetry annually selects one MFA Creative Writing student to attend the Key West Literary Workshops in poetry all expenses paid.
Natalie currently lives in Tampa with her husband, young son, suegros, and little dog.
SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS
| Year | Honor or Award |
|---|---|
| 2022 |
Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award (ORAA). |
| 2021 |
Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize. |
| 2021 |
Humanities Institute Summer Research Grant. |
| 2020 |
Griffin International Poetry Prize Shortlist. Griffin Trust, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. |
| 2020 |
Kingsley Tufts Mid-Career Award Finalist. Claremont University, Claremont, CA. |
| 2017 |
PEN American/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry. |
| 2016 |
Utah Book Award in Poetry. |
| 2015 |
Great Lakes Colleges Association鈥檚 New Writers Award. |
FELLOWSHIPS
| Year | Fellowship |
|---|---|
| 2023-2024 | McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship. McKnight Foundation, Tampa, FL. |
| 2018 | Poetry Foundation, 鈥淩uth Lily and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship.鈥� |
| 2017 | Lannan Foundation, 鈥淟annan Literary Fellowship.鈥� |
| 2015 | CantoMundo Foundation, 鈥淐antoMundo Fellowship.鈥� |
Selected Publications
Poems
- 鈥淎nother鈥檚 Living Soul,鈥� 鈥淏ecause I am a Good Shot,鈥� and 鈥淒rone,鈥� Narrative, forthcoming.
- 鈥淎 Tiny Nest of Paper,鈥� and 鈥淥bject Mother,鈥� Southern Indiana Review, forthcoming.
- "Sophia Wants a Baby and So Do I,鈥� The Colorado Review, forthcoming.
- 鈥�1,723 Miles Away From Home,鈥� and 鈥淭he Aeryon R80D Skyraider,鈥� The Yale Review, Vol. 109 Issue 4.
- 鈥淧resent This Receipt to CBP,鈥� 鈥淎gent.鈥� New England Review, Fall 2021 Vol. 42 Issue 3.
- 鈥淪mall Unmanned Aerial Systems,鈥� 鈥淭he Lockheed Martin Indago 3,鈥� and 鈥淐CTV,鈥� Gulf Coast, Summer/Fall 2021.
- 鈥淔able,鈥� 鈥淚n Youth,鈥� and 鈥淪molder,鈥� Puerto del Sol, Fall 2021 Vol. 56 Issue 1.
- 鈥淧ledge Allegiance.鈥� The Academy of American Poets鈥檚 Poem-A-Day, 1 October 2020. Online.
- 鈥淭he Trick is to Pretend.鈥� The Paris Review, Issue 228, Spring 2019.
- 鈥淧aper Cuts.鈥� The Academy of American Poet鈥檚 Poem-A-Day, 5 July 2019.
- 鈥淎fter Making Red Chile.鈥� Ploughshares, Vol. 45 No. 1, edited by Rigoberto Gonz谩lez, Spring 2019.
Areas of Specialty
Creative Writing: contemporary American poetry and poetics, Latinx/Hispanic poetry and poetics, multilingual/code-switch writing, poetry of place, documentary poetics, and book arts.