About The Book

 
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.

Find out more. 

One of Well-Read Black Girl’s Best Books of the Year

One of Bookish’s “Must Read Poetry Collections of 2023”

Included in Ms. Magazine‘s “Best Poetry of the Last Year”

Included in Ebony‘s “August Required Reading”

One of We All Grow Latina’s “20 Books From Latine Authors to Keep an Eye Out for in 2023”

Included in Zibby Mag’s “Poetry Collections for National Poetry Month”

  • Melania Luisa Marte’s Plantains and Our Becoming is a shape shifting work of magic. It is a siren song, a battle cry, an anthem for Afro-Latine centered acts of self-love and revolution. Each line offers us the sharpened blade of a machete to cut away what is rotten. To plant ourselves again. To cultivate our truest, most beautiful selves.”

    —Cleyvis Natera, author of Neruda on the Park

  • “This collection is a full-throated war cry; both a request for anointment and the responding bendición. Marte writes like she’s got daggers between her teeth: yes, there is sharpness in every line, but her words remind us blades also cauterize, heal. Even these ancestral wounds.”

    —Elizabeth Acevedo, the National Book Award winning author of The Poet X

  • The poems in this collection are an experience. One cannot just read these poems without standing right next to the speaker right from the beginning as they are making plátanos. These poems demand the reimagining of justice for Black women. Plantains and Our Becoming examines a lineage of reclamation and resistance in the face of racial injustice with freedom and joy at the helm.”

    —Elisabet Velazquez, author of When We Make It

  • Remember the name, because soon it may be difficult not to… In the book, Marte beautifully describes how she pays homage to her Afro-Latinx roots. She brings these stories to the forefront to create a poetic revolution all her own”

    —PopSugar

  • There is no voice like Melania Luisa Marte’s right now. I hesitate to say words like ‘necessary’ and ‘groundbreaking’ because it should simply be a given that Marte’s work is in people’s hands, headphones, bookshelves, and syllabi. Marte’s prose is all at once prayer and captivating lecture; a song that will stay ringing in your ears and refuse to leave. I can’t shout about it enough.”

    —Melissa Lozada-Oliva, author of Dreaming of You

  • “This new debut book of poetry by musician and writer Melania Luisa Marte is a stunning and entertaining exploration of one’s identity as both an individual and as part of the larger Black diasporic community.”

    —Shondaland, “Best Books of August”