Poet, librarian and educator Alison Rollins talks with Nat and Nina about survival of many kinds, including wilderness time travel, archives, and letting the birds come to you. Find Alison’s book, Library of Small Catastrophes from Copper Canyon Press, and find another great interview with Alison and fellow queer survivalist Latria Graham at the Poetry Podcast.
With Alison Rollins
Alison C. Rollins holds a Bachelor of Science 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 Visiting Assistant Professor in the department of English at Colorado College. She also serves as faculty for Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Low-Residency MFA. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, The New York Times Magazine, The Poetry Review, 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 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature fellowship as well as a 2018 Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award. A 2020 Pushcart Prize winner, her debut poetry collection Library of Small Catastrophes (Copper Canyon) was a nominee for the 2020 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.