Messina College faculty member
Amy Alvarez wins prize 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.
“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.
“I wrote Makeshift Altar as an ode to my Caribbean roots and in celebration of island culture in diaspora,” said Alvarez, whose debut book was characterized as “stunning” and “a fearless meditation on belonging and becoming” by the panel. “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.”
Alvarez, born in New York City to Jamaican and Puerto Rican parents, will be honored at a formal presentation ceremony at the annual CARICON literary conference in June 2026 in Toronto. She 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.