Alison C. Rollins
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National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellow &
Rona Jaffe Award Winner! 
Library of Small Catastrophes is something like an actual library full of definitions, news articles, Paraguayan folklore, T.S. Eliot’s papers, Gilgamesh's kaleidoscope, and anything else this brilliant poet can imagine. Yes, these poems are lit and enlightened, but Alison C. Rollins' lively charms are always rooted to a notion that "only things kept in the dark know the true weight of light." The small and large darknesses catalogued here make this a book of remarkable depth. This is an electrifying debut.
— Terrance Hayes, MacArthur Fellow |
Alison C. Rollins holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Howard University & a Master of Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Born & raised in St. Louis city, she currently works as a 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, The Poetry Review, & elsewhere. A Cave Canem & Callaloo Fellow, she is also a 2016 recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship. Rollins has most recently been awarded support from the National Endowment for the Arts & the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference & is a recipient of a 2018 Rona Jaffe Writers' Award. Her debut poetry collection Library of Small Catastrophes is forthcoming with Copper Canyon Press in Spring 2019. Twitter: @AlisonCRollins Instagram: @AlisonCRollins 
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Drawing from Jorge Luis Borges’ fascination with the library, Rollins uses the concept of the archive to offer a lyric history of the ways in which we process loss. “Memory is about the future, not the past,” she writes, and rather than shying away from the anger, anxiety, and mourning of her narrators, Rollins’ poetry seeks to challenge the status quo, engaging in a diverse, boundary-defying dialogue with an ever-present reminder of the ways race, sexuality, spirituality, violence, and American culture collide. — Copper Canyon Press |