Plantains and Our Becoming: Poems
A rousing, beautifully observed, and tender-hearted debut poetry collection about identity, culture, home, and belonging—for fans of Jasmine Mans and Fatimah Asghar
“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. PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING is “a full-throated war cry; both a request for anointment and the responding bendición” (Elizabeth Acevedo).
“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. PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING is “a full-throated war cry; both a request for anointment and the responding bendición” (Elizabeth Acevedo).
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Community Reviews
After an amazing conversation with Melania, our moderator T’challa shares her final thoughts.
🍃Plantains and Our Becoming~ poems by Melania Luisa Marte.
🖊️ “For all lovers born the color of earth…”
From the book’s dedication to the poem Libre, Melania Luisa takes the reader on a pedestrian journey of evolution and growth. Each poem is food for the soul. They feed your inner child and pre-teen, to teenage to young woman and all the versions of us with a steady reminder of the presence of our elders and other women journeying as well. Through familial connection with love and land to the experience of moving from one environment to another, Marte’s words are plantains, and mangoes and the relief you feel when you allow grieving tears to fall. Some poems were reminders of childhood joys and celebrations of the little things your grandmother taught you. Celebration of the love of parents while simultaneously being frustrated by a racist system. Other poems remind you of the many ills we face in society but do not speak out loud. You will feel the joy of being in a garden as your grandmother blesses the ground. You are awakened by the vindication in requiring the world to Call Me By My New Name. You will understand what it means when Swallowing Teeth. This collection is rich like the healthiest soil of the earth. Delicately laced with history as it vigorously confronts racism, this collection is fierce. Each poem is a perfected seed awaiting the reader’s harvest. I smiled, I exhaled and snapped my fingers. I wept over Child’s Play at A Funeral and felt Mal Habla in my soul. This is a collection that anyone facing an evolution should read. We change all the time on this journey of life. It is beautiful to have a poetic guide paint pictures of your beautiful pain through words that nurture your spirit. Even to reflect on all I felt as I turned these pages brings a smile to my face. Through story, poetry and various poetic forms Melania Luisa has given the world a piece of herself. I am grateful. It is my hope that you breathe this collection in and exhale anew.
Reviewed by T’challa Williams
This BrowneGirl Reads Poetry Hour moderator, 2024.
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