Alison C. Rollins
Photo by Maya Darasaw
Bio
Alison C. Rollins holds a Bachelor of Science (summa cum laude & phi beta kappa) in Psychology from Howard University and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Born and raised in St. Louis city, she currently works as a Reference & Instruction Librarian for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. A Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow, she is also a 2016 recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship. Rollins has most recently been awarded support from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and is a recipient of a 2018 Rona Jaffe Writers' Award. Her debut poetry collection Library of Small Catastrophes is forthcoming with Copper Canyon Press Spring 2019.
Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, I rarely had opportunities to experience my hometown as a place of burgeoning poetic practice for young people of color. I hope that in receiving a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship I continue to stretch and push our collective expectations surrounding where valuable literature is being written. Outside of geographic assumptions I would also hope that this fellowship expands our limited imagination for who is producing innovative literature. I truly relish any opportunity to increase the visibility of this country’s unsung heroes including those who work to sheer exhaustion in the fields of education, public service, public health, and medicine. For years I have worked full-time positions in public libraries, schools, and most recently in higher education while struggling to carve out time to write. Instead of pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry I obtained a Master of Library and Information Science. My subject position as a poet-librarian is one that informs my craft and creative lens. Despite the real-time demands of labor and survival I have kept the scope of my projects as ambitious as possible. In an economically fragile climate and as a member of many particularly at-risk populations, this fellowship affirms my accomplishment thus far and offers me greater financial stability to continue to grow and evolve. The financial support that the fellowship offers will allow me the ability to travel internationally and devote time to my future projects. I am honored to join the legacy of NEA literature fellows and am humbled to receive recognition amongst the rich and talented landscape of contemporary writers.
"Why Is We Americans"
We is gator teeth hanging from the rear
view mirror as sickle cells suckle at Big
Momma’s teats. We is dragonfly
choppers hovering above Walden pond.
We is spinal cords shedding like the skin
of a cotton-mouth. We is Psalm 23 and
the Pastor’s chattering chicklets. We is
a good problem to have. We is throats
constricting and the grape juice
of Jesus. We is Roach and Mingus in
Birdland. We is body electric, eyes
watering with moonshine, glossy lips
sticky with lard. We is half brothers in
headlock, arm wrestling in the dirt.
We is vaseline rubbed into knocked
knees and cracked elbows. We is ham
hocks making love to kidney beans. We
is Orpheus, lute in hand, asking do we
have a problem? We is the back-story
of myth. We is sitting horse and crazy
bull. We is brown paper bags and
gurgled belches. We is hooded ghosts
and holy shadows roaming Mississippi
goddamned. We is downbeats and
syncopation’s cousin. We is mouths
washed out with the blood of the lamb.
We is witch hazel coated backs sucking
on peppermint wrappers. We is the
spiked antennas of a triangle- face
praying mantis. We is barefoot
tongue-tied hogs with slit throats and
twitching bellies. We is sun tea and
brewed bitches. We is the crying
pussies that stand down when told to
man up. We is Radio Raheem and Zoot
Suit Malcolm. We is spit-slick low cuts
and fades. We is scrappy black masked
coons and turkey necked bullfrogs. We
is the pits of arms at stake, the clouds
frothing at the mouth. We is swimmers
naked, private parts allegedly fondled
by Whitman beneath the water. We is
late lurkers and castrated tree limbs
on the Sunday before last. We is red
veined pupils and piss stained knickers,
slack-jawed and slumped in the
bathroom doorway. We is whiplash
and backhanded ways of settling grief.
We is clubbin’ wooly mammoths
upside the head, jammin’ fingers in
Darwin’s white beard. We is comin’
round yonder, pigeon-toed and
bowlegged, laughin’ our heads off.
We is lassoed cowboys swingin’ in
the sweet summer breeze.
(First published in POETRY Magazine