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Elvis Alves

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Elvis Alves

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Elvis Alves (www.elvisalves.com) was born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He is a graduate of Colgate University and Princeton Theological Seminary. His work has appeared in several journals and magazines including Poetry Magazine, Sojourners, Transition, Caribbean Writer Journal, and The Applicant. Elvis is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. He is the author of Bitter Melon (2013), Ota Benga (2017), I Am No Battlefield But A Forest Of Trees Growing (winner of the Jacopone da Todi Poetry Book Prize) (2018), Black/White: We Are Not Panic (Pandemic) Free (2020), Blackfish (2022), and This Is What I Know (2023). His latest book is Exile Is Home (2025). In 2025, he was a finalist for the Poetic Justice Institute Editor's Prize (Fordham Univ ...more

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Elvis Alves Rouchswalwe. Thanks for checking in, and for the question. Yes. I do cook. I love to cook. But I am most curious about the process of cooking. I see c…moreRouchswalwe. Thanks for checking in, and for the question. Yes. I do cook. I love to cook. But I am most curious about the process of cooking. I see cooking as a science. One creates when one cooks, so it's an art form to me (like writng poetry:) I also see it as tying one to a specific culture or location. This was on my mind when I wrote the verse that you quoted. What do the foods I cook and eat say about me, about where I am from? So, food serves a very important role in my writing. You can say that it's like a historical document that I search for meaning (along with being scientific). I do a similar thing with music and with language. (less)
Average rating: 4.55 · 78 ratings · 23 reviews · 10 distinct worksSimilar authors
Bitter Melon

4.29 avg rating — 42 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions
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Ota Benga

4.82 avg rating — 11 ratings2 editions
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I Am No Battlefield but a F...

4.86 avg rating — 7 ratings
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The Hoot and Hare Review (N...

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it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2013
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Blackfish

4.67 avg rating — 6 ratings
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Black/White: We Are Not Pan...

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 5 ratings2 editions
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Exile Is Home

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
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This Is What I Know

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1.are made of silver and gold in the belly of a whalemoving to land full speed ahead of the storm that
catches and de Read more of this blog post »
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Published on January 10, 2020 13:00
Black in Blues: H...
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Elvis Alves is on page 100 of 256 of Black in Blues
Black in Blues by Imani Perry
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Exile Is Home by Elvis Alves
Exile Is Home
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How to Be Unmothered by Camille U. Adams
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Elvis Alves is on page 170 of 273 of How to Be Unmothered
How to Be Unmothered by Camille U. Adams
How to Be Unmothered: A Trinidadian Memoir
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Lord of the Flies by William Golding
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More of Elvis's books…
Chinua Achebe
“The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.”
Chinua Achebe

Lucille Clifton
“You might as well answer the door, my child,
the truth is furiously knocking.”
Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

Zora Neale Hurston
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
Zora Neale Hurston

Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandela

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No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read ...more
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87303 Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club — 17295 members — last activity Nov 20, 2025 04:09AM
You just found the Official unofficial Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club. We will read the Goodreads Choice Awards winning books throughout the year b ...more
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message 2: by Elvis

Elvis Alves For a limited time, read Ota Benga for free on #Kindle, http://amzn.to/2Bjxlk3


message 1: by Elvis

Elvis Alves Download and read Bitter Melon for free here: http://amzn.to/Hpf9p9 Promotional offer ends 10/28.


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