Bio

D. Allen is a poet, performer, and multidisciplinary artist from North Carolina. D. earned their MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota in 2017, and their first hybrid collection of poems and images, A Bony Framework for the Tangible Universe (The Operating System, 2019), was one of four poetry finalists for the Minnesota Book Awards. D.’s recent text and image chapbook, “NET/WORK: an archive of queer disabled life, art, and performance 2018-2023,” which documents their ongoing series of solo performances and large-scale textile installations, was published with a 2023 Creative Support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. D.’s performance-installations have premiered at Minneapolis venues including the Center for Performing Arts, Red Eye Theater, the Cowles Center, Squirrel Haus Arts, and the Phoenix Theater. D. was awarded a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship; they have received additional support from the Mallard Island Artist Residency, 20% Theatre Company, The Loft Literary Center, and Lighthouse Works. Their poems and lyric essays have been recently published by Arnoldia Magazine of the Arnold Arboretum and the Walker Reader of the Walker Art Museum. D.’s site-responsive textile installation, “time, held,” is on permanent display in the Center for Performing Arts lobby. 

Using poetic and essayistic forms and a range of other artistic media, D.’s work explores the body, illness, disability, intimacy, the natural world, sexuality, and gender. This work takes many forms: word architectures, painted surfaces, light drawings, textured sounds, soft spaces, slow dinners, sustained listening, tender assemblages, quiet gardening, deep breaths. They value each of these endeavors equally.