Beyond the Watershed

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A hybrid collection of poetry and photography, Beyond the Watershed explores the various experiences of a Haitian American daughter and her Haitian immigrant mother. Nadia Alexis crafts a moving portrayal of generational trauma, domestic violence, survival, and reclamation using stunning imagery drawn from the body, spirit, nature, and cityscapes. Alexis traces journeys to break free–documenting pain, making space for light, becoming a reckoning, connecting with spirit, and writing oneself into new seasons of safe waters, healthy love, and transformation. This vital debut affirms that there’s “nothing like the thirst / of Black girls who believe in their own dreams,” even as they navigate nonlinear paths to healing. “Sometimes the clouds speak to me / & tell me to look beyond the burning,” the daughter declares as she charts her own path forward.

Nadia Alexis, a Harlem, New York City native, is a poet, writer, photographer, and daughter of Haitian immigrants. Her writing has been published in Poets & Writers,The Global South, Shenandoah, Wild Imperfections: An Anthology of Womanist Poems, and others. A fellow of both The Watering Hole and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, she has received several honors, including the 2023 Poet of the Year of the Haitian Creatives Digital Awards, a 2020 semifinalist of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, and 2019 Honorable Mention Poetry Prize from the Hurston/Wright College Writers Award. She holds an MFA and a PhD from the University of Mississippi.