“We, children of plátanos, always gotta learn to play in everyone else’s backyard and somehow feel at home.”
Poet and musician Melania Luisa Marte opens PLAINTAINS AND OUR BECOMING by pointing out that Afro-Latina is not a word recognized by the dictionary. But the dictionary is far from a record of the truth. What does it mean, then, to tend to your own words and your own record—to build upon the legacies of your ancestors?
In this imaginative, blistering poetry collection, Marte looks at the identities and histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to celebrate and center the Black diasporic experience. Through the exploration of themes like self-love, nationalism, displacement, generational trauma, and ancestral knowledge, this collection uproots stereotypes while creating a new joyous vision for Black identity and personhood.
- Publisher : Tiny Reparations Books
- Publication date : August 22, 2023
- Language : English
- Print length : 160 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593471342
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593471340
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.43 x 7.98 inches