Jordi Alonso

Jordi Alonso ’14 had a goal to have a book ready for publication by the time he graduated. He did more than meet it; he exceeded it. 

Honeyvoiced, a volume of poetry inspired by the work of ancient Greek poet Sappho, was published by XOXOX Press in November of the same year.

Roger Rosenblatt, author of The Book of Love and Unless It Moves the Human Heart and the winner of this year’s Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, had high praise for the book. “The words, so naturally right, each poem seems easy, a tune hummed on a walk. But it takes long brooding to produce work this good. That Alonso has achieved so much so early in his career makes one want to gasp,” he said.

Since the publication of Honeyvoiced, Alonso, who majored in English with a creative writing emphasis, has been finishing his master’s of fine arts in creative writing at Stony Brook Southampton University in Long Island, New York. His work has been published in the Southampton Review, Edible and the Colorado Review. He also is the poetry editor at The Whale, an online community and literary blog that publishes fiction, poetry, translations and essays.

He is looking for an editor and publisher of his second volume of poetry that will center on sensuality and food. He also is applying for doctoral programs in comparative literature, after Professor of Humanities Tim Shutt and Associate Professor of Spanish Katherine Hedeen encouraged him to do so. “They made me realize I really want to stay in academia,” Alonso said.

His next big writing project takes him to another genre: playwriting. “I’m reconstructing the Tragedy of Andromeda into verse,” he said. He only has a small bit of the original play, supposedly last seen by Alexander the Great. “I have a plot summary, but only snippets of dialogue. It’s exciting.”