Lauren K. Alleyne is the author of two collections of poetry, Difficult Fruit (2014), and Honeyfish (2019); two chapbooks, Dawn in the Kaatskills (2008) and (Un)Becoming Gretel (2022); as well as co-editor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (2020). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic, Ms. Muse, Tin House, and The Caribbean Writer, among others. Her most recent honors include a nomination for the 2020 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, the longlist for the 2020 Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the shortlist for the 2020 Library of Virginia Literary Awards. Her poetry was selected for the 2021 Best American Poetry anthology, the Academy of American Poets Poem a Day (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022), and was a finalist for 2019 Best of the Net.continued below
“Lauren Alleyne’s voice is a revelatory and formidable fusion of irrepressible music and uncompromising craft. Like snippets of cinema, these poems arrest the senses and challenge what’s known. Every door this exceptional work opens opens onto a larger light.”
— Patricia Smith, 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Winner

Alleyne was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She earned a BA in English from St Francis College in Brooklyn, NY, an MA in English and Creative Writing from Iowa State University respectively, and an MFA in Poetry from Cornell University. In 2022 Alleyne was recognized by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, with a 2022 Outstanding Faculty Award for her work at James Madison University, where she serves as a professor of English and executive director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center.
CV
Honeyfish, (winner Green Rose Prize), New Issues Press (US) & Peepal Tree Press (UK), forthcoming 2019
Difficult Fruit, Peepal Tree Press, Leeds, UK. 2014
(Chapbook) Dawn in the Kaatskills. Longshore Press, Pittsburgh. 2008
Gallery, The Dubuque Area Writers’ Guild Book Project, Dubuque 2011-2013
Telling Our Stories 2, The Social Justice Collective, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 2009
Before the Hospital: Qatar and the Tradition of Healing, with Autumn Watts, et. al., Qatar Foundation, 2008
From the Heart of Brooklyn, with Terry Quinn and Erin Bogart, Vivisphere, Poughkeepsie, 2002
“Gretel Gets her Menses & Prideless,” Cheery Tree (forthcoming)
“Poetry After the Verdict,” and “Elegy” Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, Routledge (Forthcoming)
“Arrival,” “Taverna Alexandria,” “After Greece,” and “Return,” June 2018
“Variations in Blue,” Poets.org poem-a-day, April 2018
“Anthem,” “Gretel Advises America,” Ms. (Muse), April 2018
“Martin Luther King Jr. Mourns Trayvon Martin,” The Atlantic MLK Special Issue, Feb-May2018
“Ode to Ghosts” Comstock Review, Winter 2017
“Questions,” “The Immigrant Goes to Therapy,” “Island Girl Blues,” Interviewing the Caribbean, Winter 2017
“Elegy,” “Heaven?” and “Martin Luther King Jr. Mourns Trayvon Martin,” The Mighty Stream: Poems in Celebration of Martin Luther King, Bloodaxe Books, November 2017
“Nostalgia Negra,” and “Inventing My Mother a Lineage,” Colorado Review, Summer 2017
“Reading Among The Ruins,” Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter 2017
“Heaven?” Split this Rock Poem of the Week, September 2016
“Red Pilgrimage,” One, Issue 10, September 2016
“Poetry Workshop After the Verdict,” Resisting Arrest, Jacar Press, March 2016
“A Gathering of Light,” The Grief Diaries, February 2016
“Ode to Fish-As-Weathervane” and “Elegy to Fish-As-Weathervane,” Women’s Review of Books, Jan 2016
“Madame X,” Feminist Wire, September 2015
“Poetry Workshop After the Verdict,” One, Issue 6, August 2015
“The Hoodie Stands Witness, and “Talking to the Dead,” Driftless Review, Issue 4 Winter/Spring 2015
“Gretel as Bard,” “Bedtime Story #1” Los Angeles Review, Vol. 16, Fall 2014
Excerpts from [Out], Knockout, Issue 5, Fall 2014
“How to Watch Your Son Die” and “Killed Boy Beautiful World,” Crab Orchard Review, Vol. 19 No1, 2014
“Those Among Us,” MiPoesia, April 2014
“Portal: Blue,” Folio, Vol29 Issue 1, 2014
“Post-Verdict Renga for Trayvon,” Los Angeles Review of Books, Winter 2014
“Eighteen,” Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual, 2014
“Fifteen,” Prairie Schooner, Vol. 87, No. 4, Winter 2013
“When the Angels Come,” DBQ Magazine, October 2013
Selected Poems, Unruly Catholic Women: Vol 2, SUNY, October 2013
Selected Poems, IthacaLit, June 2013
“Dear Christopher,” Naugatuck River Review, February 2013
“What Night Knows,” Thethepoemoftheweek, February 2013
“Silent Dances,” “Ode to Ghosts,” “Ten most sacred places,” About Place, August 2012
“Dear Autumn,” “If, Sky,” “Talking to the Dead,” G’NAT Magazine, July 2012
Selected Poems, Let Spirit Speak: Cultural Journeys through the African Diaspora, May 2012
“Little Birds,” “Why It Happened,” “The Face of It”, Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, August 2012
Selected poems, Imaginatio et Ratio, Vol 1, Issue 1, May 2012
“Small Graces: Poems” Small Axe V35, July 2011
“Love in B minor,” “To My Lover’s Partner,” and “The Place of No Dreams” Connotation Press, Nov. 2010
“18,” Split this Rock Poem of the Week, August 2010
“Grace Before Meals,” “John White Defends,” aspeers (Germany), Issue 3 2010
“How it Touches Us,” Southward, (Ireland), Feb/Mar 2010
“Ghazal in Arms,” “When There’s Only You,” “Sky from the Ground” Cimarron Review, Vol 176, Dec 2010
“No Questions,” “On the day,” “The Illusion of Closure,” “Reunion,” “Bend, Bend” No Tell Motel, Sept. 2009
“Landlocked,” “Mama Remembers Mayaro,” Melusine or Woman in the 21st Century, Summer 2009
“Love Poem with the Cane Fields (His)/(Hers)” and “It is not Impossible,” The Drunken Boat, Fall 2008
“Origin,” “Discipline,” and “Resolution,” Temba Tupu! May, 2008
“Wedding Vow,” “Self Portrait,” and “Last Rite,” Torch, Spring 2008
“Origin,” “When Mom Found my Vibrator,” Kennesaw Review, May2007
“The Village Queen,” New Writing: A Journal of the Teaching and Practice of Writing, (UK) Vol 4:1, 2007
Selected Poems, From the Heart of Brooklyn: Volume 2, Dec, 2006
“On The Most Depressing Day of the Year,” Bellevue Literary Review, Fall 2006
“Ash Wednesday,” “Fear and Trembling,” “Veneration,” 2riverview, Summer 2006
“In a Maxi-Taxi On The Way Home From School,” Growing up Girl, April 2006
“Train Song,” Banyan Review, Spring 2006
“The Taste of Apples,” The Atlanta Review, Fall 2004; Gathering Ground, January 2006
“A Ghazal In Blue” & “No Body’s a Mystery” Black Arts Quarterly, Summer 2005
“Conversation” & “Little Longings,” Sexing The Political: A Feminist Journal of Sexuality, Vol. 3 Is 2, Sp 2004
“The Hardest Love Poem,” The Caribbean Writer Vol. 18, July 2004
“The Contract,” The Hampden Sydney Review, Spring 2004
“Desire,” Sexing The Political, Vol 3 Is 1, Spring 2003
“How to Speak of Home” The Caribbean Writer Vol. 17, July 2003
Selected Poems, From the Heart of Brooklyn (Dec, 2002)
“Untitled” and “Guilty,” Sexing The Political, Vol 2 Is 2, Fall 2002
“Where the Heart Is” Des Moines National Poetry Festival Chapbook, May 2002
“Our Choices, Our Voices: Writing from within the War on Women” New York Arts Magazine, Dec 2012
“What Women Wear” Crab Orchard Review, Fall 2009
“A Grab Won’t Cure My Feminism” Sexing The Political, 2003; Women’s Studies Quarterly, Fall 2007
“How to Leave Home” The Moveable Nest: A Mother Daughter Companion, Fall 2007
“Options for International Grads,” “How to be a Teaching Assistant,” Egrad.com, Spring 2001
“The Way the Body Goes” Guernica, Dec 2012
“The Boy Who Lived in a Glass House” Redbook, Dec 2010
“We Are One: An Introduction,” in Thank You For Dreaming by Jeanine Pitas, Lummox Press, 2018
“The Last of the Loud: Introducing the finalists of the Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize,” Obsidian, Fall 2017
“The Teller, The Listener, The Tale: An Introduction,” in The Walled Wife, by Nicelle Davis, Red Hen Press 2016
“Shaping the World: An Interview with Toi Derricotte,” Femmeilterate, March 2016
“Making a Monstress: An Interview with Marjorie Liu,” Guernica, February 2016
“Seeding and Rooting the Writing Life: An Interview with Mary Swander,” Femmeliterate, October 2015
“Tending the Writerly Self: An Interview with Tracy K. Smith,” Femmeliterate, August 2015
“Salvaged Crossings: An Interview with Gauitra Bahadur,” Guernica, November 2014
“Does Truth Have a Tone? An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid” Guernica, June 2013
Monday Must Read! Review by Mary Carroll-Hackett, June 2017
Difficult Fruit review in Muzzle Magazine by Lindsay King-Miller, 2017
The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Lauren K. Alleyne’s Difficult Fruit, Sundress Publications, 2015
Difficult Fruit review in Sabotage Reviews by Bethany Pope, 2015
An interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, Blast Furnace, 2015
“In the Fires of Hope and Prayer” (Difficult Fruit review) in SxSalon by Andee Bagoo, 2015
Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, Speaking of Marvels, 2014
Difficult Fruit review in QBR: The Black Book Review by Leslie Haídez De Jesús, 2014
Dark Matter: A Review of Difficult Fruit in The Sunday Guardian by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2014
Difficult Fruit review in Gwarlingo, by Michelle Aldredge, 2014
Difficult Fruit Review in San Francisco Book Review, by Rosie Hollinbeck, 2014
Difficult Fruit Review in The Braircliff Review by Jeanne Eammons, 2014
“The Mind Vs. The Body” by Raymond Ramcharitar in The Trinidad Guardian, 2014
An interview with Lauren K. Alleyne by Nicelle Davis, Connotation Press, 2013
Winner, Green Rose Prize, New Issues Press, Western Michigan University, 2017
Third place winner, Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest, Comstock Review, 2017
Finalist, Richard Peterson Poetry Prize, Crab Orchard Review, 2017
Philip Freund Prize for Excellence in Publishing ($5000), Cornell University, 2017
Finalist, Poetry International Poetry Prize, 2017
Winner, Split This Rock Poetry Prize, 2016
Writing Workshops in Greece Fellow, Thasos, Greece, 2015
IthacaLit establishes Lauren K. Alleyne/Difficult Fruit Poetry Prize, 2015
Picador Guest Professor, University of Leipzig, 2015
Iowa Arts Fellowship ($5000), Iowa Arts Council, 2014
Finalist, Richard Peterson Poetry Prize, 2013
Edna Clarke Payne Fellow, A Room of Her Own Foundation, 2013
Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Scholarship, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, 2013
Third Place, Split This Rock Poetry Contest, 2012
Finalist, Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Contest, 2012
Second place winner, Iowa Poetry Society Prize, 2012
First Runner Up, Cave Canem Poetry Prize, 2011
Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, 2009, 2011
University of Missouri, Columbia Summer Seminars in Greece/Cave Canem fellow, 2011
First place winner, Literary Contest—Poetry, Small Axe, 2010
Runner up, O’Donoghue Poetry Prize, Munster Literature Centre, Ireland, 2010
Finalist and Semi-finalist, Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize, 2009
Saltonstall Artist Colony Fellow, June 2009
Yaddo Fellow, May 2009
Work Fellow, Colrain Manuscript Conference, August 2008
Callaloo Writers Workshop participant, July 2008
Lester Lennon Scholarship Recipient, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, June 2008
Resident Poet, Jentel Artist Residency, May 2008
Robert Chasen Graduate Poetry Prize, Cornell, 2005
International Poetry Publication Prize Winner, Atlanta Review, 2004
Summer Fellow, Cave Canem Poetry Workshop, 2004, 2005, 2007
1st Place Winner, The Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest, 2003
Poetry Night, Theatre Club Mbabane, eSwatini (Swaziland), August 2018
East City Bookshop, Washington, DC, May 2018
Old Dominion Bookstore, Charlottesville, VA, May 2018
Lord Superior Hosts Furious Flower: A Cultural Exchange, Trinidad, April 2018
BOCAS Literary Festival, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, April 2018
Atomic Books, Baltimore, MD, April 2018
CityLit Literary Festival, Baltimore, MD, April 2018
Women in Focus, Court Street Theatre, Harrisonburg, VA March 2018
150 Franklin Street Gallery, Harrisonburg, VA, February 2018
Folger Shakespeare Center, Washington, DC, January 2018
Distinguished Visiting Poet, Governor’s School, Salem College, NC July 2017
Word!: A Caribbean Lit Fest, Brooklyn, NY, June 2017
Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA, May 2017
Iowa State Alumni Literary Festival, Ames, IA, April 2017
Hugo House, Seattle, WA, April 2017
The Gathering, Winston-Salem, NC, April 2017
Resisting Arrest Reading, Potter House Books, Washington, DC, December 2016
Furious Flower Reading Series, James Madison University, Virginia, November 2016
Thorton Reading Series, Lynchburg College, Virginia, October 2016
Sunday Kind of Love, Busboys and Poets, Washington, DC, September 2016
Writing Workshops in Greece, Thasos, Greece, 2016
Split This Rock Poetry Festival, April 2016
Ropewalk Reading Series, University of Southern Indiana, March 2016
Dixie State University, St. George, UT 2015
Waldorf College, Forest City, IA 2015
Spectra Reading Series, Midwest Writing Center, Quad Cities 2015
Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, 2015
Erfurt University, Erfurt, Germany, 2015
Worlds Festival, Writers Centre, Norwich, England, 2015
Writing Workshops in Greece, Thasos, Greece, 2015
Ipek University, Ankara, Turkey, 2015
FLUX FM, Berlin 2015
Word on the Street Festival, London Metropolitan Archives, London, 2015
Bad Language, Manchester Library, Manchester, England, 2015
Picador Reading, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, 2015
The Gretel Project, University of Dubuque, Dubuque, IA, 2015
Women’s History Month Reading, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, 2015
Single Voice Reading Series, Alleghany College, Meadville, PA, 2015
Featured Presenter, Davenport PEO, Davenport, IA, 2015
The Poetry Circus, Los Angeles, CA, 2015
Observable Reading Series, St. Louis, MO, 2015
Decorous Art and Poetry, Des Moines, IA, 2015
Black Poets Speak Out, Indianapolis, IN, 2015
Wisconsin Book Festival, Madison, WI 2014
Caribbean Poetry w/ Linton Kwesi Johnson, NYU Institute of African American Affairs, New York, NY, 2014
louderARTS Featured reader, New York, NY, 2014
Women Writers in Bloom Featured Reader, New York, NY, 2014
Iowa City Book Festival, Iowa City, IA, 2014
Voices from the Warehouse, Dubuque, IA 2014
University of Wisconsin-Platteville, WI, 2014
Carnegie Stout Public Library, Dubuque, IA 2014
BOCAS Literary Festival, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 2014
Pebbles, Bread, Bone: Excerpts from The Gretel Project, Chicago, IL, 2014
Literary Encounters: A Conversation with Lauren K. Alleyne & Jamaica Kincaid, Brooklyn, NY, 2014
Briar Cliff University, Sioux City, IA, 2014
Concordia University, Chicago, IL, 2014
The Green Mill, Chicago, IL, 2014
Meramec Literary Festival, St Louis, MO, 2014
River Lights Book Store, Dubuque, IA, 2014
“Published! From Poetry Manuscript to First Book,” AWP Writers Conference, Seattle, WA 2014
Interview on Art Talks with Bruce Carter, WVIK Augustana Public Radio, Quad Cities, IA Oct. 2013
“This is What a Word Can Give” A Room of Her Own Foundation, Abiquiu, NM 2013
Scales Mound High School, Scales Mound, IL 2013
Naugatuck River Review Prize Reading, AWP Writers Conference, Boston, MA, 2013
Cave Canem Fellows Reading, AWP Writers Conference, Boston, MA, 2013
Patricia Smith and Friends Poetry Extravaganza, Caleb poetry club, Cambridge, MA, 2013
A Love of Words, eronel, Dubuque, IA 2013
Cave Canem Prize Reading, New York, NY October 2012
University of Dubuque Poet-in-Residence Reading Series, Dubuque, IA, September 2010, October 2011, 2012
Dubuque Area Writers Guild Reading, Dubuque, IA September 2012
Carnegie Stout Public Library, Dubuque, IA, April 2011
Word Cure Reading series, Dubuque, IA, August 2011
University of Missouri Summer Seminars in Greece, Serifos, Greece, July 2011
Poetry Society of America Lucille Clifton Commemoration, New York, NY, April 2010
Ars Poetica Exhibition and reading, Brooklyn, NY, March 2010
Torch: A Journal of African American Women’s Prose and Poetry Reading, Brooklyn, NY, November 2009
Joe Milford Poetry Show, www.joemilfordpoetryshow.com, July 2009
Saltonstall Open Studio Reading, Ithaca, NY, July 2009
Cornell 100+5 years of Writers Reading, Ithaca, NY, March 2009
Bowery Poetry Club, New York, NY, March 2009
440 Gallery Reading Series, Brooklyn, NY, November 2008
Hobart and William Smith Faculty Reading Series, Geneva, NY, October 2008
Calalloo Poetry Workshop Participant Reading, St Louis, MO, August 2008
Jentel Presents, Sheridan, WY, June 2008
The Moveable Nest Mothers Day Reading, Cornelia Street Cafe, New York, NY May 2008
Chatham University Chapbook Launch and Readings, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2008
Interview on Out of Bounds radio show with Tish Pearlman, Ithaca, New York, October 2007
“Do Not Deny Me Anger: The Story of Dame Van Winkle,” Literary Lecture Series, Doha, Qatar, 2007
“The Language of Illness,” Literature and Medicine Roundtable, Literary Lecture Series, Doha, Qatar, 2007
“Transgressive Lyrics: Slam poetry and Calypso,” Cultures of Carnival Symposium, Ames, Iowa, 2005
“Slam Poetry with Team Ithaca,” Conference on Languages and Literatures, Cortland, New York, 2004
“Three Women: Plath, Poetry and Rhetoric,” Feminism and Rhetoric Conference, Columbus, Ohio, 2003