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bookishmillennial's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
For my first prompt (reading for #TheDiverseBaseline 2024 reading challenge) “a book of poetry,” I read this powerful collection of poetry. Melania Luisa Marte is Dominican & Haitian American & explores these roots in this collection with biting commentary on immigration, colonization, colorism, racism, misogyny, classism, family, culture, and hope.
She begins with the Merriam-Webster dictionary erasure of “Afro-Latina” & this sets the stage for the rest of the poetry. Marte continues to reflect on her childhood & growth as she learned to take up more and more space in a world that refuses to recognize & validate her biracial identity, her body, her skin, & her lived experience. She saw folks who looked like her in the background of telenovelas, but never front & center. Never the main character. Though Afro-Latinas were seemingly erased in media representation as she grew up, no one let her forget this central part of her identity.
The “Afro” in Afro-Latina comes first, & this collection pays tribute to that. In “Ode To Amara La Negra,” she says: “Ode to resisting the task of making your Blackness more digestible. To discovering the history of colonization, whitewashing and erasure in the Caribbean and across the diaspora…To the way you learned to take up all this space.” She packs every single line, verse, poem with a punch, ensuring you’re taking note.
In “Questions for Hispaniola,” she writes: “Teach me to choose violence. Teach me to be a root. To stand firm in something.” There is another poem at the end called “I Am Rooting For You,” & that is something that viscerally stood out to me because I say so much. I really am, I’m rooting for us & so is Melania Luisa.
Though this poetry covers topics that do bring up real rage & heartache for me, I closed the book feeling a desire to dive deeper into community & feeling empowered that one day we will all be free.
I can’t wait for what Melania Luisa Marte does next, because I will be following her journey. This was wildly impactful & I highly recommend you buy yourself a copy to annotate, highlight & reread!
For my first prompt (reading for #TheDiverseBaseline 2024 reading challenge) “a book of poetry,” I read this powerful collection of poetry. Melania Luisa Marte is Dominican & Haitian American & explores these roots in this collection with biting commentary on immigration, colonization, colorism, racism, misogyny, classism, family, culture, and hope.
She begins with the Merriam-Webster dictionary erasure of “Afro-Latina” & this sets the stage for the rest of the poetry. Marte continues to reflect on her childhood & growth as she learned to take up more and more space in a world that refuses to recognize & validate her biracial identity, her body, her skin, & her lived experience. She saw folks who looked like her in the background of telenovelas, but never front & center. Never the main character. Though Afro-Latinas were seemingly erased in media representation as she grew up, no one let her forget this central part of her identity.
The “Afro” in Afro-Latina comes first, & this collection pays tribute to that. In “Ode To Amara La Negra,” she says: “Ode to resisting the task of making your Blackness more digestible. To discovering the history of colonization, whitewashing and erasure in the Caribbean and across the diaspora…To the way you learned to take up all this space.” She packs every single line, verse, poem with a punch, ensuring you’re taking note.
In “Questions for Hispaniola,” she writes: “Teach me to choose violence. Teach me to be a root. To stand firm in something.” There is another poem at the end called “I Am Rooting For You,” & that is something that viscerally stood out to me because I say so much. I really am, I’m rooting for us & so is Melania Luisa.
Though this poetry covers topics that do bring up real rage & heartache for me, I closed the book feeling a desire to dive deeper into community & feeling empowered that one day we will all be free.
I can’t wait for what Melania Luisa Marte does next, because I will be following her journey. This was wildly impactful & I highly recommend you buy yourself a copy to annotate, highlight & reread!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Cursing, Eating disorder, Genocide, Racism, Sexism, Grief, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, and Colonisation
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