Nadia Alexis is a Harlem-born poet, writer, photographer, and daughter of Haitian immigrants, currently residing in Mississippi. Her debut full-length collection of poetry and photography, Watersheds, is forthcoming with CavanKerry Press in March 2025, and it was also a finalist for the 2022 Ghost Peach Press Prize.

Nadia has received multiple accolades, including the 2024 Mississippi STAR Teacher Award and a 2024 Artist Mini-Grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission. She was named the 2023 Poet of the Year at the Haitian Creatives Digital Awards, and her photography has been exhibited internationally, including in the U.S. and Cuba. A fellow of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and The Watering Hole, Nadia holds both a PhD and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi.

Sample Poetry From Watersheds

From Haiti to New York

The Port-de-Paix sun was hiding
that day. I was on my way to work,
he was standing on his porch, his eyes
trailing me like the wind. His cheeks
stood upright as he bid me bon jounen
each morning. I always smiled, bid him
the same, and kept walking until one
day he asked m’ ta remen evite'w al mange.
And this time, I stopped. Told him he
must meet my parents before he could
take me to dinner. Without a second
thought he agreed. That day, I floated
to work like a child. My parents approved
of this man who came to our home with clean,
unfurled hands. Our love was a rooster’s song,
sudden as lightning. His heart was made of
mangoes and sugarcane. We married during a year
without a surge, in a Catholic Church whose name
I can’t remember. Our parents looked on in wells
of joy, knowing little of the future that would strip us
in the palm of its hands. Cola Lacaye and bouyon
waited for us in the reception hall. We danced into
the signing of the book that sealed the pact we honor,
even when the universe begs us not to, on its knees,
with tears on its back. He flew to New York and built
a home where I joined him, brim-bellied with life. When
I gave birth to a quiet death, I also gave birth to you. Never
marry someone like your father. Whippings from his gravel
tongue leave stains I can’t scrub away. His hands rip the soul
from my chest as we struggle to learn English, raise you girls
and work to keep the rain off our heads. Don’t be like me.
I married too soon. There is no love here and the misery
that lives in this home is nothing the good Lord would want.

— Originally published in Texas Review 

Prayer to Èzili Dantò

In my dreams, I run across the ocean &
become more woman with each wave.
something like you. I fly bruiseless &
renewed by the blue suns. Assemblies
of mothers & daughters sing & laugh
big until we all fly hand-in-hand. We sweat
& become our own guava horizons. Every
coconut tree is a city that welcomes us.
No one tries to take the moon from our teeth.
In this world, we don’t have to lower our
heads or bend. Everywhere we go, so does
the water. Our hair shimmies at the clouds
& make songs with the wind. No rape,
no black eyes, no pockets or souls sucked
dry, no one to lead us away from this home.
Everything we can dream is blooming & true.

— Originally published in Wild Imperfections: An Anthology of Womanist Poems