Elvis Alves 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 Sojourners, Rufous Salon, Caribbean Writer Journal, and The Applicant. Elvis is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. He is the author of Bitter Melon (2013) and the chapbooks Ota Benga (2017), and Black/White: We Are Not Panic (Pandemic) Free (2020). His most recent full length poetry collection is I Am No Battlefield But A Forest Of Trees Growing (Franciscan University Press, 2018), winner of the Jacopone da Todi Poetry Book Prize. His next book is called Blackfish, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry Press (Ireland).