Melania Luisa Marte is the author of Plantains and Our Becoming (Tiny Reparations Books, August 2023). National Book Award–winning author Elizabeth Acevedo (author of Clap When You Land and Family Lore) calls Marte’s book “a full-throated war cry; both a request for anointment and the responding bendición.” The book description is below, followed by excerpts of the interview from Al Día News.
Book Description: “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.
Moving from New York to Texas to the Dominican Republic and to Haiti, this collection looks at the legacies of colonialism and racism but never shies away from highlighting the beauty—and joy—that comes from celebrating who you are and where you come from.
Interview (Excerpts from Al Día): Melania Luisa Marte is an American writer, poet, and musician from New York living between Dallas and the Dominican Republic. Marte’s poetry often explores her Caribbean roots, intersectionality, and self-love. She recently participated in a Q&A with AL DÍA News.
First of all, to connect with our Latino readers here in Philadelphia, could tell me a bit about yourself and your family? You were born in New York. Were your parents immigrants? From where?
Yes, my father immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic when he was eight years old and my mother when she was 20. I was born in the Bronx and moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan when I was four years old.
Did you ever think you would be a poet/writer someday?
I’ve always wanted to be a creative and when I discovered spoken word poetry in middle school I became obsessed and knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The hard part was making a living off of my poetry but we figured out a way after many years of hustling and shameless self- promotion.
[. . .] When/how did you start to become identified as an “Afro-Latina?”
I’ve always identified as a Black girl, my afrodescendencia was something that I cherished and have always celebrated and as I began learning my history and reading texts by Black historians and creatives, I wanted to help be a part of the culture shifters who help folks understand their own afrodescendencia. It is a beautiful thing to be able to stand in your truth and exist authentically beyond the binaries and boxes society tries to put us in.
How did the idea of this book come up?
I had been learning to farm plátanos in the Dominican Republic and I would wake up early mornings and sit in my patio and stare out into nature. I suppose I have my mother to thank for the four acres of land she bought when I was a child in Bonao that was left abandoned. On a visit in 2018, I made it my duty to clean up the land and then during the pandemic, I decided to stay on the island and grow my own food. I felt like this book was meant to be written and that was the perfect opportunity to listen to what the plantains had to say. My first question to them was, “How are you still here? How have you and I survived?” And I would sit each morning for months in my rocking chair and just listen. Listen to the plátanos, listen to my ancestors, listen to the earth. I felt like a messenger, a portal, a spirit who could put pen to paper and unravel all these questions and ask some more. [. . .]
For full interview, see https://aldianews.com/en/culture/books-and-authors/plantains-and-our-becoming
For purchasing information, see https://www.amazon.com/Plantains-Becoming-Melania-Luisa-Marte/dp/0593471342
Melania Luisa Marte is the author of Plantains and Our Becoming (Tiny Reparations Books, August 2023). National Book Award–winning author Elizabeth Acevedo (author of Clap When You Land and Family Lore) calls Marte’s book “a full-throated war cry; both a request for anointment and the responding bendición.” The book description is below, followed by excerpts of
