Between teaching, writing, and literature, advising first-generation students, and jetting off to readings and conferences, Messina College Associate Professor of the Practice Amy Alvarez pens poetry.

Her main subject:  her multicultural identity. 

“It’s a full celebration of who I am,” Alvarez said of her debut collection, Makeshift Altar: Poems. 

Others are celebrating with her. Alvarez was recently named the recipient of the 2025 CARICON Prize for Poetry and the 46th annual American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

But it is not only the award committees that Alvarez has won over.

Fellow Messina College Professor of the Practice Kat Gonso has integrated Alvarez’s poems into her class curriculum.

“When I show it to my students, they expect poetry to be sonnets, Shakespeare, Yeats,” Gonso said. “They expect to hate it.” 

One of the very first poems Gonso assigns students is “Other Mothers,” a poem in Makeshift Altar that discusses Alvarez’s hardworking mother. She chose this work because it is something students can resonate with.

“They can see it, they can feel it, and it’s something that some of them very much relate to,” said Gonso.

In her capacity as an academic advisor, Alvarez takes pride in helping Messina College students navigate the challenges of college life.

“We’re all on this steep learning curve together,” Alvarez said. “As a college student, you’re always figuring out: what do I want to do with this? I have this interest, I have this passion, how do I make money?”

Alvarez is not only providing space for these conversations in her office either. 

Alongside Gonso, she is currently working to launch Genesis, a first-generation oriented literary magazine. The magazine, Messina College’s first student publication, aims to provide a place for first-generation student voices. 

“We’re really trying to give those students a platform to let them share their experiences with the rest of the community, to share their stories,” Gonso said.

The first issue will be launched in April—just in time for Messina College’s inaugural class to graduate from the associate’s degree program.

Lynne Anderson, another Genesis faculty advisor and director of the Morrissey College Arts and Sciences for Multilingual Learners program, is looking forward to the magazine’s release. Anderson, too, has brought Alvarez’s poetry to her students.

“I had her come in as a guest poet last year,” Anderson said. “They loved her.”

Alvarez has also used her work as a means of connecting with students. 

“Every now and again, I’ll talk to a student about a research paper, and I mention a poem I’d written that connected to the student’s research conceptually and topically,” said Alvarez. “It’s like a sharing—you’re sharing your paper with me, I want to share this with you because I think it speaks to the shared experience we both had around this topic.”

Anderson sees Alvarez’s metaphor and imagery-rich work as as generous as the author herself. 

“She’s always willing to take the time to help someone, to share important wisdom that she carries with her about her immediate world and the larger world, the complicated nature of this place that we’re living in,” Anderson said. 

Much of Alvarez’s Makeshift Altar is grounded in her life experience growing up in Queens as a Caribbean-American.

“Like all poems, most of it is based completely in reality,” Alvarez said. “Some of it’s in my perceived reality, and some of it is on the edge of reality.” 

Alvarez was born to a Patois-speaking Jamaican mother and a Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican father. Her multilingual upbringing has informed the way she approaches her poetry: beginning with freeform journaling written in varying languages.

“I felt the authentic way to write things was writing them in the language that I heard them in,” Alvarez said.

Language isn’t the only authentic element of Alvarez’s work—it is also her exploration of her own Afro-Carribean identity. 

“I wanted to represent that multiplicity of my idea of what it means to be an American, which is multilingual and multifaceted and multicultural,” said Alvaerz.

But Makeshift Altar wasn’t written overnight, according to Alvarez. Instead, she says the collection contains poems written years apart, spanning all phases of her journey as a writer and poet. 

The culmination of all these years: recognition. 

The CARICON Prize for Poetry and 46th annual American Book Award both aim to honor works from diverse writers—and their recognition has meant more to Alvarez as they present as an acknowledgement and acceptance from the people that Makeshift Altar represents.

In particular, she felt the CariCon prize connected her to her Caribbean roots, while the American Book Award brought her toward the remarkable authors that had come before her. 

Now she is looking toward her second book—but the themes of Makeshift Altar will continue to characterize her work. 

“It feels lovely to be embraced by both aspects of self. My Caribbeanness, my Americanness, which is very much what the book is about,” Alvarez said. “It’s a kind of beautiful coincidence, serendipity.”