Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read Plantains and Our Becoming: Poems by Melania Luisa Marte. This collection tells such a powerful story of Marte's identity as Afro-Latina, a word which the dictionary does not recognize. She uses different forms of poetry throughout, which I found to be such a creative mode of storytelling. Marte shares of her Black diasporic experience, paving her way in a tumultuous racist world. I really loved the perspective this book gave me.

Thanks to Pengun House Dutton, Netgalley and Melania Luisa Marte for this ARC

Marte' poetry collection, comprised of various themes centering on Black diaspora. I loved how this collection evokes emotion and you read each one. I am not familiar with the author but loved this collection. So intentional and captivating,

Rating 4/5

I loved the writing in Plantains and Our Becoming. I appreciated the author's Afro-Latina roots, which aren't always highlighted in publishing. The writing was beautiful but approachable.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc
“Plantains and Our Becoming” is a beautiful love letter to Afro-Latinos and New York. Marte takes the reader on a journey of love, discovery, and respect.

Based on the dedication alone, you know you're going to feel lots of feelings while reading Plantains and Our Becoming, a debut poetry collection focusing on Afro-Latina identity. This book of poetry has such beautiful prose and digs deep into identity and familial roots. Some of the poems are more of essays, which give additional context. Highly recommend.

This collection was absolutely stunning and left me feeling all the emotions. Every word is intentional and powerful. Marte plays with all the tools she has - capitalization, punctuation, and paragraph breaks - to make each piece a weapon.

I appreciate that Marte begins the story by claiming space for Afro-Latinas. From there, the momentum doesn't stop. Every piece shows specific, powerful moments, both the good and bad. Topics include her family history, her childhood, present-day struggles in America, and the overall Afro-Latina experience.

What I absolutely love about this collection is that many specific names, events, and descriptions are used without explanation; Marte does not stop to define anything for the reader. There is power in the reader already knowing the history and experiences you're talking about, which is a privilege white heterosexual people take for granted, leaving all others to constantly play the role of teacher if they want to be heard. Marte is having none of this. She claimed her space and told her story. If you don't know the context, go look it up yourself, because Marte does not stop to coddle. Exactly how it should be! Honestly, I was ashamed of how much context I didn't understand; it really showed me how uneducated I am and that I'm part of the problem, too.

Overall, this is a diverse and powerful collection. I initially wanted to say I'd just recommend the book to anyone looking for a powerful story and voice, but in reality everyone should read this collection and hear what Marte has to say. Period.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Plantains and Our Becoming is the debut poetry collection by Melania Luisa Marte. I requested and read this poetry collection because I’m always looking to read more dominican and dominican american voices to discover. Even when poetry is not a genre I read much of, this book felt like more than just poetry, this collection felt like a memoir told in verses, poems and song.

I loved the way she expreses herself embracing her Afro-Latina heritage and identity. Her poems reminiscing the beauty and the treasures of Dominican Republic made me miss and long for home country.
Poems are equally beautiful and heart-wrenching at times, with stories of how different events have shaped her life and her views, her feelings and desires. I highlighted so many passages that resonated in one way or another.

Overall, I think that this is a beautiful collection, with varying styles I think can be attractive to many different readers, even those who like me don’t read poetry often.

THIS is what poetry is supposed to be! I thought that Rupi Kaur was peak poetry when I read it in high school but this collection literally changed my life. Every word was so well-chosen, which made every sentence so important and special. While I am a white woman reading this, I feel like this was so educational and it taught me even more about Black culture and Afro-Latina culture. This is one of the most meaningful poetry collections I have ever had the privilege of reading and I truly think this will become a classic. Everyone needs to read this.

Thank you so much to the publisher for reaching out to me and thank you to NetGalley for gifting me a temporary ebook. All opinions are my own.

Plantains and Our Becoming is the debut poetry collection by Melania Luisa Marte. This book delves deeply into conversations about the identity and culture of being Afro-Latina in a lyrical and raw way that had me captivated from the first page.

Marte starts this collection off with what the term Afro-Latina means to her and her identity as a whole and how this world has tried to box her into one half of her heritage while ignoring the other half. I found this whole introduction fascinating because it is not something I have ever thought about but now I can’t stop thinking about it. This collection taught me a lot about this culture while being so well written, I was constantly rereading lines.

I’m not really a poetry person. I find it hard to connect with the style. But this collection was absolutely stunning. Maybe I haven’t connected to poetry before because I didn’t feel like I was gaining a lot from it whereas this felt like a history lesson, a class on culture and colonialism and racism. The luscious writing and style choices made each entry into this collection feel unique while painting a larger story.

This is an ownvoices story and I cannot wait to see ownvoices reviewers pick this up a read it. As much as this hit me, I can only imagine how much more it will mean to someone who feels seen through this collection. I am desperate to get my hands on a physical copy of this book when it releases because I would love to go back through an annotate some of my favorite parts. This was a stunning debut and put this author immediately on my autobuy author list. I will be patiently waiting to see what she comes out with next!

i absolutely loved this poetry collection!

some favorite quotes:

"I have learned to play with the ghosts of both our pasts." pg. 123, Dance With Me

"what would you do if your identity crisis could/no longer be your personality trait? who could/you be if you believed you had answers before/you had anxiety?" pg. 111, future is a space

"Remember that back pack so heavy your spines near broke my back? I'm not saying you the reasons I have scoliosis; I'm saying is chronic back pain is the price to pay for having you, wordsmith god, literary queen, alphabetized deity." pg. 63, Ode to the New York Public Library

"the end? all i be trynna do is make it home." pg. 106, Climacteric Wonders

I read this book as an advanced, digital, egalley via NetGalley. This book is great. There are moments in here that took my breath away. I love the use of different forms of poetry, especially the letters as poems to her parents and the Haitian and Dominican flags in conversation and contention. My favorite poem, which the author shared before it came out, is For Breonna Taylor. Absolutely devastating and achingly beautiful. Smuggling a Mango is genious, so much encapsulated into a few lines. Another great poem is Black Spanish. I love the discussion on the racialization of language and accents, particularly because everyone has an Opinion on Caribbean Spanish for its heavy Indigenous, Blackness. It shines in this book.

Throughout the book, you can see the cry for a new order while honoring the voices of her people, her traditions, Black, Dominican, New Yorker. It took me by surprise that quite a few poems are on the longer side, but they are equally great. It is a stellar poetry collection. Thank you for the eARC!

This collection is equally beautiful and heart-wrenching. They way her combined experiences as an Afro-Latina have shaped her life and her views are laid out on the page in verses that are lyrical, but also pack a punch. In this time, where it is difficult to not only be Black, but also Latina in the United States, Marte very clearly lays out her feelings and desires, while also addressing her family history and her identity. I found myself drawn to the strength and the willingness to fight in the poems, while being equal drawn to poems celebrating such diverse topics as the New York Public Library.

Ode to the New York Public Library is one of my favorite poems in this collection. I love libraries and have always viewed them as a safe space, similar to that of the author. She praises the library for how it helped shape her into the person she is today. With libraries being under attack, we need more poems, and other types of creative content, to help people remember how important these spaces are to the community and its development.

I also really enjoyed her poems discussing her complex history with America and enjoyed her reminiscing about the Dominican Republic, where it seems she generally felt more at home. The passages about her family were particularly touching. I also found myself drawn to the depictions of the warm and tropical aspects of the Dominican Republic, but that could be partially because I live in a country that is still getting snow in May.

Overall, I think that this is a beautiful collection and readers with a similar background to that of the author will enjoy it in particular. However, I think readers interested in learning more about what it means to be Afro-Latina will also get a lot out of it. I wouldn’t consider myself to be a very good judge of poetry, but the range of styles and topics in this collection should ensure that everyone can find something that touches them.

What a fantastic debut collection! Full of verve and truth. In my Poetry Month column for Ms. Magazine, I used three words to describe it: customs, blessings, homecomings.

https://msmagazine.com/2023/04/20/best-poetry-2023-feminist-women-lgbtq-writers/

Raw, authentic and beautiful! I enjoyed reading these poems and learning more about the author’s heritage and identity.

This book of poetry was raw and real. The experience of the Afro Latina woman in America , with family, within herself was beautifully explained and written.

This poetry collection shows the author's Afro-Latina identity, history, and feeling of belonging. The poems celebrate her heritage while tackling not fitting in, immigration, stereotypes, and learning self-love. I really enjoyed learning more about the author's Dominican heritage and what she and her family faced with their African heritage. I also appreciated the author's use of culture, music, and food in the poetry to describe her experiences and the intersection between race and culture. I also find how the author passed across generational trauma and discrimination important and relevant. Some of the poems didn't draw me in, but this was a good collection overall.

Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton and Netgalley for this e-arc for an honest review.

huge thank you to the publisher and author for providing this e-arc via netgalley! (this does not affect my opinion)

such a beautiful collection of poetry, highlighting the author’s afro-latina identity. melania evokes such raw emotions, touching on themes of race and culture, love, family, deracination and so much more. i’m not normally a poetry kind of person, but I’m in awe of the authors ability to draw readers of any kind in.

An absolutely gorgeous collection. Plantains and Our Becoming begins with the poet stating that Afro-Latina is not in the Webster dictionary, that the term “does not exist.” The collection that follows goes on to explore what it means, personally, to be Afro-Latina as the poet delves into her own life, the lives of her family members, and what it’s like to exist as an Afro-Latina in American culture. The use of form throughout the book is beautifully executed, and the mix of Spanish and English is excellent. A must read.

"𝙾𝚍𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚜𝚔, 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝’𝚜 𝚒𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎: 𝚃𝚘 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚍? 𝚃𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚠𝚊𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚕? 𝚃𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚖𝚊? 𝚃𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎? 𝚃𝚘 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚜’ 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚓𝚞𝚖𝚙 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗?"

I was only 30% into this book when I knew I was absolutely going to love it and needed to buy a physical copy when it came out. From the dedication to the very end my attention was hooked on these words. There are just some experiences that immigrants experience over and over to the point that it becomes a shared experience and I related to this book and these poems on a cellular level. It actually took me several days to write this review because I just couldn't come up with the words to accurately describe just how special this was. The author is from the Dominican Republican and with me being from Cuba we're basically cousins. No, but on a series note there are a lot of themes about identity, being an Afro Latina, family history, the history of our ancestors (even the ones we will never know about), struggling, freedom, dreams and incredibly beautiful. Melania put her soul into these poems and it shows, I thoroughly recommend this book.

A compelling, angry, and insistent collection of poems and prose poems that circle around the author's Dominical Republic, Afro-Latina identity, her family and family history, and her desire to have what she wants, from power and presence to material wealth. Celebrating things and people as diverse as the NY Public Library and Cardi B, there's a focus on ownership and the trappings of financial success that I find unusual--many of the poetry of immigrants and those in diasporas more often decry capitalism and its effects on their communities. But Marte is forthright about her wants, and her citing of popular culture's flamboyances situates the collection in a particular point in time and place. There are a number of poems in shapes that didn't really need the non-standard typesetting to be effective, and a few pieces that feel like warm-ups for other poems in the collection.