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Biography
Lauren K. Alleyne is a Trinidadian-American poet, fiction, and nonfiction writer and educator born and raised in the dual-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. In 1997, Alleyne moved to the United States to begin her undergraduate studies in Radiologic Science and Nuclear Medical Technology at St. Francis College in New York. It was not until Alleyne’s junior year that Alleyne decided to shift her focus towards English. Alleyne then graduated with honors from St. Francis College with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. In 2002, Alleyne received her Masters of Fine Arts in English with an emphasis on creative writing from Iowa State. Finally, in January of 2006, Alleyne received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, as well as a graduate certificate in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality studies from Cornell University. In addition to her impressive scholastic record, Lauren K. Alleyne is also a graduate of Cave Canem, a non-profit literary service organization with administrative and programming headquarters that works to promote and advance under-represented African American poets in the Literary world, and provide an environment that fosters the growth of African American voices and artistry. In addition to serving her talents in the literary community, Alleyne also worked as the Poet-in-Residence and as an Assistant Professor in English at the University of Dubuque in Iowa. Currently, Alleyne works as an Associate Professor in English, and the Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University in Virginia.

Career
Lauren K. Alleyne’s work serves as a reflection of her experiences in searching for and embracing her identity as a Trinidadian-American woman, while also paying homage to the events that have shaped her individualism. Alleyne’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction work has been illustriously published globally in journals and anthologies including Black Arts Quarterly, Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, The Crab Orchard Review, Belleview Literary Review, The Banyan Review, Let Spirit Speak, Guernica, and Growing Up Girl and Gathering Ground, among many others.

On Difficult Fruit
Alleyne’s first and only book, Difficult Fruit, published by Peepal Tree Press, is a collection of poems that chronicles Alleyne’s coming of age journey into self-knowledge. The “difficult fruit” illustrates an individual’s growth from a life filled with adversity, and the hard-won victories that led to a greater sense of identity. Divided into three parts, Alleyne’s collection in Difficult Fruit deals with the challenges of loss, love, and life that contributes to womanhood and an individual’s overarching identity.

The first section of Difficult Fruit, centers around the theme of loss, suffering, and the trauma of life and womanhood. Included in part one is her poem, Eighteen, which tells the story of a young woman in the initial stage of discovering herself, her desires, her temptations, her fears, and the hardships of being a woman in an unstable world. Eighteen ends in destruction when Alleyne discusses sexual violence and loss: “Despite your desire, despite the first thrill, the word means you said no, too, and that matters. The word tells us you were not being punished by God. The word means you were not weak, not stupid, not damned; you were a victim- not a tease, not a cautionary tale or a moral. This is what a word can give: definition, meaning - the closest we can get to salvation."

Another powerful poem that deals with suffering and trauma is Alleyne’s, The Hoodie Stands Witness, which serves as a response to Trayvon Martin’s death. Told from the perspective of Trayvon Martin’s hoodie, Alleyne acknowledges “the stereotype as a reduced symbol” during a reading at St. Francis College. Alleyne uses the hoodie to bring Trayvon back to being seen as a person rather than a stereotype. The hoodie also serves as a universal witness for the minority, specifically the African-American community.

In the second section of Difficult Fruit, Alleyne continues to illustrate the multifaceted elements of womanhood and life under the theme of love. Alleyne begins her section commemorating a “love that charms good sense into sweet, burning madness” (from her poem Love in G Minor) but later transitions into poems in which the narrator describes a love that wants “to push you out of [her] heart, and watch your long fall through its chambers and valves until you are momentary- a blip, and irregular beat” (from her poem Love in B Minor). Alleyne delves into the exploration of love and hurt, sexuality, and the lessons to be taken from the trials of love and relationships.

In the final section of Difficult Fruit, Alleyne illustrates the tensions between her younger self and her older self. Part three portrays a world in which time is disrupted, and how in order for a woman to understand her present, she must recognize and embrace her past. This understanding and acceptance leads to a sense of wholeness.

Awards and Accolades
As a Cave Canem graduate, Alleyne’s was worthy of receiving several awards and accolades such as the following:
 * International Publication Prize from The Atlanta Review
 * The Robert Chasen Graduate Poetry Prize at Cornell
 * 2003 Atlantic Monthly Student Poetry Prize
 * 2003 Gival Press Tri-Language Poetry Contest (Honourable Mention)
 * 2009 Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize (Honourable Mention)
 * 2009, 2011 Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Prize
 * 2010 Small Axe Literary Prize
 * 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize (Honourable Mention)
 * 2012 Lyrical Iowa Award/Lyric Iowa Poetry Prize (2nd place)
 * 2013 Richard Peterson Award (finalist)

Books

 * Difficult Fruit

Selections Available Online

 * The Body, Given
 * Ode to the Belly
 * The place of no dreams
 * Love in B Minor
 * To My Lover’s Partner, Upon their Separation
 * Ash Wednesday
 * Fear and Trembling
 * Veneration

Short Stories Available Online

 * The Way the Body Goes
 * 2012: Writing from Within the War on Women

Featured In

 * From the Gathering Ground
 * The Taste of Apples
 * From Let Spirit Speak!
 * Landlocked
 * What Kept Us
 * Origin
 * The Sky From the Ground

Other Articles and Poems

 * On Watching Little Birds, the Documentary on the Iraq War by Japanese Video Journalist, Takeharu Watai; The Face of It: A Meditation on an HIV/AIDS Poster on the A-train; Why It Happened
 * Small Graces
 * The Face of It: A Meditation on an HIV/AIDS Poster on the A-train.
 * The Documentary on the Iraq War
 * Why It Happened
 * Reading Among the Ruins
 * A GRAB WON'T CURE MY FEMINISM
 * The Hardest Love Poem
 * How to Speak of Home
 * The Village Queen
 * The Face of It
 * Misunderstanding the Female Athlete Triad: Refuting the IOC Consensus Statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport
 * Ode to the Fish-as-Weathervane
 * Elegy for the Fish-as-Weathervane
 * Brooklyn Boy Dreams of Iowa
 * Speak of Me