My poetry and short stories appear in Poetry Magazine, Asymptote, Prelude, Black Warrior Review, Poetry Northwest, among others, and in the anthologies Nepantla and Queer Nature.
Book Project
The Body Territory
A collection of poems, The Body Territory engages ecopoetics and decolonial feminist concepts of the body‑territory. The poems reflect on climate degradation within an ever‑changing landscape where body and land are inseparable, drawing on Verónica Gago’s formulation of cuerpo‑territorio and its insistence on the continuity between individual, collective, and earth bodies. Across the collection, multiple voices speak to resilience after trauma—lived, intergenerational, and ancestral. The speaker bears witness through a queer ecology in which transformation is both environmental and embodied. The poems experiment with repetition, fragmentation, erasure, and translation, using echo and fracture to enact memory and survival.
Anthologies
Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology (Autumn House Books, 2022)
Bettering American Poetry, Volume 2 (Bettering Books, 2019)
Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Night Boat Books, 2018)
READINGS & PERFORMANCES
“The Afternoon is the Medium: A Rail Reading,” Presenter, curated by Aditi Machado, featuring Aditi Machado, Jahan Khajavi, Dong Li, and Sarah María Medina, June 2023.
“Bilingual Poetry Reading,” Presenter, Festival de Lenguas Contra la Homofobia, Universidad
Autónoma del Estado de México, Toluca, México, June 26–30, 2017. This festival, organized by UAEM's Facultad de Lenguas, aimed to promote understanding and dialogue on issues related to language and homophobia.
Awards
Centrum Artist in Residence— 2026
Port Townsend, Washington
Selected for a competitive national week-long residency supporting artistic development. Worked on an experimental novel-in-progress within a multidisciplinary cohort and participated in a public-facing event showcasing works-in-progress.
To Witness is to Carry, Finalist, Georgia Poetry Prize — 2025
University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia
Poetry collection To Witness is to Carry; selected as one of two finalists from over 500 submissions for the Georgia Poetry Prize, a nationally recognized award supporting emerging and established poets in the United States.
To Witness is to Carry, Finalist, Jake Adam York Prize — 2025
Copper Nickel/Milkweed Editions, Denver, Colorado
Poetry collection To Witness is to Carry; selected as one of twenty finalists from 982 submissions for the Jake Adam York Prize for this nationally recognized award for first or second poetry collections.
That Which Echoes, Finalist, Alice James Award— 2023
Autumn House Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Poetry collection That Which Echoes; selected as a finalist by Alice James Books, a nationally recognized press supporting emerging and established poets in the United States.
That Which Echoes, Finalist, Autumn House Award—2023
Alice James Books, New Gloucester, Maine
Poetry collection That Which Echoes; recognized for excellence in contemporary poetry and selected as a finalist for the annual national award series in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction.
That Which Echoes, Finalist, Colorado Prize for Poetry—2022
Colorado Review, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Poetry collection That Which Echoes; selected as a finalist for excellence in contemporary poetry.
Caldera Artist in Residence— 2018
Caldera Arts Center, Sisters, Oregon
Selected for a competitive national month-long residency supporting artistic development. Created new poetry within a multidisciplinary cohort and participated in a public-facing event showcasing works-in-progress.
Seattle ARTIST UP Grant Lab— 2017
Artists Up (Artist Trust, 4Culture, ArtsWA), Washington
Selected for a statewide grant supporting artistic development through a collaborative initiative by three Washington arts agencies. Awarded funding to support the creation of new poetry within a multidisciplinary cohort.
Black Warrior Review—2017
Poetry Award, University of Alabama
Recognized for excellence in poetry by Black Warrior Review, a national literary journal. Selected through a competitive submission process for outstanding work in contemporary poetry.
“Sarah Maria Medina´s “Rosario’s Jewel Box,” is a story I still cry over every time I read it. I love its subterranean vocalization, the lyricism of it, and the cruelty, too.”
“At the center of “From a Poet to her Rumbero” is a bucking heart, grappling with its fanged history & unbreaking fever. You sense its luminous pulse from the opening scene: i’m a dying sky of eagles / i’m arrowed into it. The poem’s language is unbridled yet moves with a sinuous grace, cinematic in scope–you can almost hear the trumpets blaring as each new line unfurls its glittering tapestry of Spanish and english: grey mirada turned ice y todo / i’m blessed with ancestor names / i’m protected by light / tú cantas y cantas y cantas / until i know all your harmony / but i won’t beg you to see me. I will always treasure the full-body, heart throttle of a poem that refuses to simplify love-grief & its many heads. From a Poet to her Rumbero is adventurous and much larger than its page, the form barely able to hold steady the text’s orchestral muscle, providing a gorgeous collision of ferocity & song. ”
Selected Journal Publications
Selected Poetry
¨The Red Flower,¨ Colorado Review, Spring 2023.
Erasure of Girlhood, Poetry Northwest
Ode to Sweet María, Poetry Northwest Summer/Fall Print Issue
Constellation of Berenice, Winter Tangerine Review’s special feature Imaginary Homeland
Selected Fiction
