Michelle Alexander

Born in Neenah, Wisconsin, Michelle Alexander (she/her) is an American Trinidadian poet, creative nonfiction writer, mixed media artist, and teaching artist. She is the author of the chapbook She Takes a Machete as if She Knows Everything (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Alexander's nonfiction has been published in Salt Hill and her mixed media art was exhibited at the Center for Brooklyn History in 2024 as part of Jacqueline Woodson’s I See My Light Shining: The Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project.

Alexander’s honors include the 2024 Furious Flower Poetry Prize and nurturing connections with Chicago’s community as a poet in residence with the Chicago Poetry Center. She is a cofounder of Unwoven Literary Magazine.

She is a graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She has studied in the European Graduate School’s philosophy, art, and critical thought division. She earned an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, where she explored languages of vulnerability and resistance, American Trinidadian imaginaries, and disordered perspectives on loss and joy.