Biography
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a poet, independent scholar and activist, as well as a self-described "Queer Black troublemaker and Black feminist love evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all sentient beings." Her latest book, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals,
won the 2022 Whiting Award in Nonfiction. Gumbs is the author of the experimental poetic trilogy Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity, M Archive: After the End of the World, and Dub: Finding Ceremony, prose poems that push the boundaries of art-making and scholarship. Gumbs channels the voices of her ancestors, tells stories of the diaspora, traces the origins of colonialism, and declares that it’s possible to make ourselves, and the planet, anew. Her newest book, The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, a biography, is forthcoming. Gumbs holds a PhD in English, African and African-American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she lives.