Difficult Fruit;

Difficult Fruit names and claims the fruits of a passage into
womanhood. This is a journey which includes coming to terms
with sexual violence and loss, celebrating love and connection,
and bearing witness to the world that shaped that journey. These
poems are urgent as the most sincere prayers, full of vulnerability,
doubt, conviction and hope. With the authority of a poet who has
reflected deeply on her experience, and shaped technical giftedness
into accomplished craft, Lauren K. Alleyne's poems affirm again
and again the capacity of poetry to discover beauty in the midst of
human duress.