2026 Hurt & Healing Prize FIRST PLACE WINNER: “Echo-cardiogram” by Margarita Cruz
Frontier Poetry is excited to congratulate Gbenga Adesina’s pick for the FIRST PLACE winner of the 2026 Hurt & Healing Prize “Echo-cardiogram” by Margarita Cruz
“This poem is an incantation that wrestles death to the ground. It’s a ferocious dance on a sharp edged granite rock, that thin slice and cusp between life and death, between oceans and lifetimes and timelines and worlds. It’s ballet and theatrical jazz inside a beating heart, and inside that heart you can hear the pound and sound of horses’ hooves, running. Sister to sister, hip to hip, whisper and thunder, this poem, this poet has conjured a speech and song made holy because it’s a trembling, desperate prayer. The images are sharpened, unforgettable glimpses, illuminations in a thunderstorm.”
– Gbenga Adesina
Enjoy her poem below.
Echo-cardiogram
Margarita Cruz
Margarita Cruz was raised between Tamaulipas, MX and Phoenix, AZ. She is a part-time educator, member of the Northern Arizona Book Festival, and contributor for the Arizona Daily Sun. She has received support from the Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop, Lighthouse Writers, Macondo and others. In 2026, her manuscript was a semi-finalist for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Her works have been featured in Ploughshares, Rattle and the Academy of American Poets Poem a Day series among others. Find more of her at shortendings.com.
