Rocío Franco
Poetry
Chicago, IL
Rocío Franco is a self-identified Chicana warrior poet from Chicago. She holds fellowships from Rad(ical) DreamYard Consortium, The Watering Hole, Roots Wounds Words, and Periplus Collective under the mentorship of Kemi Alabi. The following organizations supported her work: the Frost Place Conference on Poetry, Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, Voices of Our Nations (VONA), Tin House’s Summer Workshop, and StoryStudio Chicago. She is a two-time Best of the Net nominee, a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2025 finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards, and her poetry was taught to high schoolers in New York. Her poems have appeared in The Acentos Review, Outpatient Press, the Chicago Reader, the Exposition Review, the Latinx Anthology: What They Leave Behind, La Libreta, La Raîz Magazine, Snapdragon Journal, Newcity Magazine, Lunch Ticket, Pest Control Magazine, L@tino Literatures Journal, AGNI, december magazine, Disco Kitchen Literary Mag, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Serotonin Press, Mom Egg Review, and Milwaukee Avenue Messenger Journal. She works full-time at a union health fund, connecting the community to public health insurance options. Because of her work in healthcare, she believes strongly in universal healthcare. She loves exploring the city with her family on the weekends, practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and approaching the world with a social justice lens. Her debut chapbook, Where the Monarchs Never Die, won the 2025 Arcana Poetry Press Chapbook Contest. You can connect with her work on Instagram at @chio_la_chingona and on her website, rociofranco.com.