Messina College faculty member
Amy Alvarez wins prizes for poetry

Amy M. Alvarez, an associate professor of the practice at Messina College, is the winner of the inaugural CARICON Prize for Poetry by the CARICON Foundation for her 2024 collection of poems, Makeshift Altar, an exploration of migration, ancestry, and resilience. She was also recognized for the poetry collection with a 2025 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

“Your book captured the attention and admiration of our selection committee for its literary excellence, cultural depth, and the powerful way it reflects the spirit of Caribbean storytelling,” said V. Steve Russell, executive director of CARICON, Inc., an international nonprofit dedicated to celebrating and promoting Caribbean writings, culture, and heritage. “Your work stands as a vital contribution to Caribbean literature.”

The CARICON Prize, launched this year as an annual international literary award honoring exceptional works by Caribbean authors across the Caribbean and the diaspora, celebrates new books in the categories of poetry, children’s literature, young adult novels, and fiction that exemplify powerful storytelling, cultural relevance, and literary innovation, spotlighting voices that explore the richness, complexity, and evolution of Caribbean identity and experience, according to CARICON.  

Makeshift Altar was characterized as “stunning” and “a fearless meditation on belonging and becoming” by the CARICON Prize panel.

“I wrote Makeshift Altar as an ode to my Caribbean roots and in celebration of island culture in diaspora,” said Alvarez, who was born in New York City to Jamaican and Puerto Rican parents. “Therefore, winning the inaugural CARICON Poetry Prize is an incredible honor. It is a beautiful reminder that my work not only found its beloved audience, but that it was beloved in turn.”

The American Book Awards honor "outstanding literary achievements from the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community."

Alvarez will be formally recognized on October 26 at the 46th Annual American Book Awards ceremony in Berkeley, California. The presentation of the CARICON Prizes will take place in June 2026 in Toronto at the annual CARICON literary conference. 

Alvarez teaches writing and literature courses at Messina College, and her scholarship focuses on race, ethnicity, gender identities, regionality, “borderless-ness,” systemic injustice, and social equity.