• Rashaun J. Allen is an Assistant Professor of English. His three independently published poetry collections became Amazon Kindle Best Sellers in African American Poetry. A Fulbright Scholar, Allen was a finalist for the 2nd Westchester Poet Laureate, a finalist for the 2021 Zone 3 Press Creative Nonfiction Award, and longlisted for the 2020 Dzanc Books Diverse Voices Prize.

Unmarked Graves

Whether enslaved, emancipated, or survived by bloodlines.
Our people inside unmarked graves are remembered.
We may not know all their names to shout.
But there is a common spirit.
Shaped by our past trials and tribulations.
That challenges us to undistort history.
That compels us to right wrongs.
To trailblaze a better way forward.
The ground cannot forget its roots.
Despite what sprouts on top of it.