I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. 

I cannot fully express how grateful I am that Button Poetry allowed me to read the ARC for this book, this kindness does not in any way influence the way I feel and will talk about Peluda and the visceral experience I had while reading it.

To understand how I felt about reading this book you need to think about it as stumbling upon someone's journal, and as you read along you identify in this stranger's words feelings and thoughts so achingly familiar you wonder how you were never able to put it into words. I did not live Melissa Lozada-Oliva's life. I don't know her, and most of the things she talks about have never happened to me, or do not affect me as a Chilean woman, but that doesn't mean I haven't felt the way she has felt. It doesn't mean that the words in "Ode to Brown Girls with Bangs" don't push me into tears thinking 'yes, yes. This is exactly it'.

There is a certain touch of intimacy coming from every single one of her words. She is not sharing a universal story, a "one size fits all" (which is always a lie), but her personal flare makes her words feel even more "cercanas", familiar and something, I believe, many people will relate to.

In Peluda, Lozano-Oliva talks about gender role, stereotypes, bodies, abuse, assault, and identity sin tapujos. She tells things just the way they are, no embellishments, no apologies. In "Mami Says Have You Been Crying" Lozano-Oliva writes "remember your body / the body-- a land of feelings we've been told to cut down / we rip the things we hate / about ourselves out & hope / they grow back weaker / but hair is the only thing that grows / the way things grow in the homeland / which is why we get goosebumps when we hear Spanish at the supermarket or when a dead friend's sweater hugs us in a dream or when a kiss is planted on the back of the neck. the hair follicles click back to life." which sounds like the condensation of every word and poem and feeling in this beautiful, familiar book because we are peludas. Our hair is thick and dark, and the more and more you shave it, wax it, curse it into submission the more it comes back like a memory, like a sign. You can never fully change who you are and where you are from, and this experience might not be the same for you, it might not be the same for me, but we are united by this common thread that runs from my mother to your grandmother, and each one of our fathers, we are memories becoming history.

I 100% recommend this book to anyone who loves intimate tales, and poetry. Button Poetry writers never disappoint. They always have very distinctive voices and styles that manage to set them apart from a sea of voices, oftentimes chanting a similar story. I don't know how much will change from the ARC to the final copy of this book, but from what I've seen, it can only get better.

My favourite out of the three poetry collection that I read and reviewed on my YouTube channel (link below). I enjoyed this collection overall and loved the feminist message. I still prefer milk and honey or the princess saves herself in this one. If you enjoyed either of those I'd recommend giving this one a shot.

melissa lozada-oliva, a poet and spoken word performer whose recent work i’ve been lucky enough to read --thank you netgalley for sending it to me to read!-- is one more poet i’ll need to add to my favorites and follow. 

after reading a few of her poems in peluda, which just released on september 26th, 2017, i knew i needed to research her background bc i felt her work, her narrative, her voice was so important. this meant watching some of her spoken word performances on button poetry, and WOW. how have i not heard of her or her pieces before!? (was especially enamored by her poem based after ocean vuong, who i adore!) this book of poetry is a keeper, reflecting lozada-oliva’s unapologetic thoughts and feelings when it comes to her experiences as a young latina woman with immigrant parents.

here’s one of her spoken word pieces called ‘my spanish’, and titled ‘you know how to say arroz con pollo but not what you are’ in peluda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE-c4Bj_RT0

Wow. I am stunned. This is one of the books I want to carry with me everywhere I go. It is both a comfort and a little irritation that reminds you of your worth and your struggles. I loved every poem in this. They are eloquent, funny, painful, just perfect. It is my honest opinion that this is one of the books that can make a better person ou of you, braver and fiercer. I feel like challenging the world after reading this.

Beautiful poetry from Melissa Lozada-Olivia all about the intersection of her Hispanic heritage and how she fits in America. She tells about her life and her parents' sacrifices and experiences. Absolutely wonderful.

"& i think of what the most
guatemalan-colombian thing i've ever done
is & maybe it's grow. i think about the most american
thing we've ever done & it's hide in this bathroom.
i think about the most womanly thing
we've ever done & it's live anyway.
this isn't opression. this is, i got you.
i believe you. it hurts but what else are we going to do
it aches but we have no other choice do we."

In this collection, Melissa Lozada-Oliva shares about her experience as a brown Latina living in a white world and many subjects related to her womanhood.
This is my first contact with this author's writing and it was such a nice introduction!! I love every poem in this book. It's hard to choose just a few to mention here, but some that stood out: AKA what would Jessica Jones Do?, The Women in My Family Are Bitches and My Hair Stays on Your Pillow Like a Question Mark. Her words are so intense and meaningful it was like I could listen to her voice declaiming them for me. And I think, one of my favorite things about poetry is when I feel so inspired by someone else's writing that I want to write my own the minute I close their books.
Honestly, I can't wait to read more of her work now!

I did not have any previous experience with Oliva-Lozada's work, but I found that she is a very talented poet. She has a very unique take on being a Latina woman and it makes her poems all the more rich.

I first discovered this poet through Button Poetry and wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Peluda. This lovely poetry collection covers some of the taboos of being a woman, while also exploring a Latina identity.The use of Spanish made this a very personal collection.

Unfortunately, I don’t quite feel like I could connect with this book, mostly because I didn’t understand any of the phrases that were in what I think was Spanish. Perhaps it would have been useful to add a section that would translate those to some readers.

Melissa explores themes that are often seen as taboos and are very much avoided but should be spoken about. Nothing is sugarcoated. She gives an authentic point of view on immigration which was very touching, and I feel like many others could enjoy this collection.

Beautiful, honest and inspiring poetry. A really good collection about the latinx community, immigration, identity, and the relationship with your body, especially body hair, as a brown latina. It touched my soul so many times. Probably because I'm reading about my community. Melissa brings important and really necessary conversations to have about what it means to be a woman of color in the United States. 
I'm really loving this contemporary poetry so much. And the cover of Peluda is so gorgeous.

This book of poetry focuses on themes such as identity, belonging and self esteem. The poems are both personal and political, and above all very feminist. They would probably be much better live, but they are still good to read.

Filled with biting, vibrant poetry, peluda is a close examination of girlhood, cultural identity, Latina identity, immigration, and body hair. This series of poems tackles heady subject matter with wit, grace, anger and sharp humour, organically illustrating the complexity of body and gender in both private and public space. These intersections of identity are chronicled through each poem, giving a confessional tone throughout the text. Occasionally experimental in form, the poems of peluda are also filled with complex language and metaphors, code-switching between English and Spanish, enhancing the conversational and confessional tone. Melissa Lozada-Oliva balances these multitudinous ideas and themes in a way that never feels overwhelming, confidently allowing the reader to consider the many things being said.

To that end, peluda isn’t afraid to ask what hair does and means, what our bodies do and mean, and how these things are compromised, protected, and negotiated by external – and often oppressive – systems. It's a bold and thoughtful account of femininity, the body, and the ways in which those concepts and realities are expressed.

I found it very humorous but, at the same time, very true to the way women feel. It spoke to me, I recommend it.

poems that bristle and bite

mami does not understand why you like holes
in your shoes, in your tights, in your gloves.
what did you want to seep through, brown girl
with bangs? a song not written about you?
really, you were being a seamstress
just like your abuela in the living room making
skirts out of curtains, just making adjustments,
just making holes in places your new skin
was supposed to be.
(“Ode to Brown Girls With Bangs”)

i don’t know if i feel in love
feel beautiful
or just feel
maybe we all need some rest
(“Self-Portrait With Historical Moments”)

I was so excited about this book that I did something I rarely do – namely, brave Adobe Digital Editions to read an ARC. (It is forever crashing my machine, okay.) Lately I’ve been digging poetry more and more and, between the book’s stunning cover and the rave early reviews, I just knew I’d love peluda. And I did! I mean, I do!

Growing up, I always felt weird and awkward and hairy – hairier than most of the other girls around me, anyway, the popular ones in particular. Okay, so maybe I’m one of the white girls Lozada-Oliva writes about in “Yosra Strings Off My Mustache Two Days After the Election in a Harvard Square Bathroom” –

the ones who don’t shave
for political reasons, the ones who took
an entire election cycle to grow
out a tuft of armpit hair

– which is to say my Italian-German self is only “hairy” when held up to modern beauty standards, e.g., not terribly hairy at all. Maybe I can’t really relate. Even so. I adored all of the twenty-one poems that make up peluda just the same. 

Over on her Facebook page, Lozada-Oliva describes peluda as “my yellow chapbook about my hairy latina feels,” which seems as apt a description as any. Lozada-Oliva tackles such weighty topics as beauty, assimilation, racist microaggressions, sex, shame, depression/metal health stigma, alienation, George Zimmerman, and, yes, body hair: clumps and heads and volumes and rivers of hair. Melissa’s Guatemalan immigrant mother Josefina was/is a beautician, so her schooling started early. Her words radiate with ferocity and hunger and wit that doesn’t cut so much as claw and devour. 

There’s so much to love here, but one piece really stands out: “Wolf Girl Suite,” which is really a story told in five acts. With all the elements of a feminist horror flick, I am aching to see this one adapted for the screen. Coming to a theater near you, Halloween 2021?

“Ode to Brown Girls With Bangs,” “You Use Your Hands So Much When You Talk,” “You Know How to Say Arroz con Polla but Not What You Are,” “What If My Last Name Got a Bikini Wax, Too,” and “We Play Would You Rather at the Galentine’s Day Party” are other favorites too. But they’re all pretty great. 

fyi, there are a number of videos of Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s spoken word poetry up on YouTube, and it’s even more powerful in person. Lozada-Oliva’s delivery is sometimes surprisingly funny, with a dark sense of humor that isn’t always – plainly? – evident in written form (at least not to me, anyhow). Search for “Like Totally Whatever” and “How To Survive The Zombie Apocalypse As An 82 year old Guatemalan Grandma” for a real treat. 

https://youtu.be/me4_QwmaNoQ

https://youtu.be/x-Y9zgOSUnk


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Origin Regimen
Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe She Got Up Early
Ode to Brown Girls With Bangs
Lip / Stain / Must / Ache
I’m Sorry, I Thought You Were Your Mother
You Use Your Hands So Much When You Talk
AKA What Would Jessica Jones Do?
You Know How to Say Arroz con Polla but Not What You Are
My Hair Stays on Your Pillow Like a Question Mark
What If My Last Name Got a Bikini Wax, Too
The Women in My Family Are B****es
I Shave My Sister’s Back Before Prom
We Play Would You Rather at the Galentine’s Day Party
Wolf Girl Suite
It’s Funny the Things That Stick With You
Mami Says Have You Been Crying
Self-Portrait With Historical Moments
Light Brown Noise
I’m So Ready
House Call
Yosra Strings Off My Mustache Two Days After the Election in a Harvard Square Bathroom

This was incredibly important and thought provoking. I absolutely adore Melissa Lozada-Oliva's use of language and the innovative and creative metaphors she uses because even though this is a very important conversation on body hair, the meaning behind it was super deep and significant. It is brutally honest and a super accurate depiction on a lot of very latinx experiences and I could relate to so many of them especially with the conversations about family and body hair being latina myself but there were so many things that I don't experience especially relating to skin colour and I thought it was important for me to read this. This is an extremely feminist text that's beautifully told and that explores topics like body hair (obviously) and its relation to femininity, family, friendships, relationships, immigrant experience and topics that are heartbreaking and painful. 

Melissa Lozada-Oliva doesn't hold back when she's writing. She puts all her feelings on page and you can feel it when you read her poems. She doesn't sugarcoat the problems and the topics that she discusses. She is truly unapologetic. The writing is wonderful and it matched perfectly the sentiments that she was conveying. If you want to know a personal experience but also something that a lot of people can relate to, this is the perfect book for you. It's raw, badass and brilliant. It celebrates Latina women and the latinx culture that's very close to my heart. Also, if you love poetry, this is a must read.

Unlike many of the people who have read this, I didn't know anything about the author. This book is a poetry collection but it felt a little bit weird for me. It seemed like Melissa wrote it like a novel and then cut it to be a poem. However I did feel a connection with it and I enjoyed it overall. With that being said I don't know if I can give it 4 stars or more. The form was just weird for me.

This book of poems embodies the Latina female image by means expressions and feelings. The author's best poem among the rest, "you know how to say Arroz con Pollo but not what you are" is all of us losing our language and explaining where we come from and how we assimilate. A book of poems that takes you to place of awareness.

"if you ask me if i am fluent in Spanish i will tell you my Spanish is an itchy / phantom limb - reaching for words & only finding air"

"did you know: that after we die
our hair still grows?

picture: a field of skulls with rock & roll mullets
picture: pubes over bones
picture: a blanket of hair tucking us in, forever."

3.5/5

I really enjoyed this collection. I adore getting a look into backgrounds different to my own. I don’t have much knowledge about that Latina culture so a lot of the Spanish words and phrases went over my head. Despite this, the raw heart Lozada-Olivia pours into each poem still hits me in the chest, still resonates with me because, despite the cultural differences love, feminism, body hair and wanting to fit is universal for young women. Ultimately this collection is about what it’s like to be human. 

This is a collection I will read over and over again. Highly recommend.

This poetry book is SO GOOD! The whole thing was this unapologetic look at what it means to be a first generation American and living in a world where cultures combine and touch your life to where your parts become nothing else, but human. However, Peluda is so much more then that. It is about being comfortable in your own skin and not being ashamed of who you are, even letting out your inner werewolf and being unafraid of being feral every once in a while.

There was one single poem that made this poetry book so much more to me and that poem was “You Know how to say Arroz Con Pollo but Not What You Are”. I finished this poem and I cried. I cried because even though her situation is the complete opposite of my own it felt like she got it.. got me. It was everything I had ever wanted to say, but in different words.

As it was World Poetry Day today I will share this poem with you all in full.

You Know how to say Arroz Con Pollo but Not What You Are

If you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish I will tell you

My Spanish is an itchy phantom limb: reaching for a word and only finding air

My Spanish is my third birthday party: half of it is memory, and the other half is a photograph on the fridge is what my family has told me

If you ask me if I am fluent I I will tell you that

My Spanish is a puzzle left in the rain

Too soggy to make its parts fit so that it can look just like the picture on the box.

I will tell you that

My Spanish is possessive adjectives.

It is proper nouns dressed in pearls and bracelets.

It is are you up yet. It is there is a lot to do today

My Spanish is on my resume as a skill.

My Spanish is on his favorite shirt in red mouth marks

If you ask me I will tell you

My Spanish is hungrier than it was before.

My Spanish reaches for words at the top of a shelf without a stepping stool

is hit in the head with all of the old words that have been hiding up there

My Spanish wonders how bad is it to eat something that’s expired

My Spanish wonders if it has an expiration date

If you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish I will tell you that

My Spanish is the smell of Windex, the tearing of paper towels, the flushing of toilets, the splash of a mop

My Spanish bites on a pencil in the corner of a classroom and does not raise its hand

My Spanish cancelled plans with you so that it could watch movies

My Spanish is my older sister’s sore smile at her only beauty pageant

My Spanish is a made up story about a parent who never came home

My Spanish is a made up story about a parent who never came home and traveled to beautiful places and sent me post cards from all of them

My Spanish is me, tracing my fingers along every letter they were able to fit in

My Spanish is the real story of my parent’s divorce

Chaotic, broken and something I have to choose to remember correctly

My Spanish is wondering when my parents will be American

asking me if I’m white yet

If you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish I will try to tell you the story

of how my parents met in an ESL class

How it was when they trained their mouths to say

I love you in a different language, I hate you with their mouths shut

I will tell you how my father’s accent makes him sound like Zoro

how my mother tried to tie her tongue to a post with an English language leash

I will tell you that the tongue always ran stubbornly back to the language it had always been in love with

Even when she tried to tame it

it always turned loose

If you ask me if I am in fluent

I will tell you

My Spanish is understanding that there are stories that will always be out of my reach

there are people who will never fit together the way that I want them to

there are some letters that will always stay silent

there are some words that will always escape me.

This poem is gorgeous, emotional, and full of so much raw truth. I know it is not one that would make most people cry, but for me after I first read it I was an emotional mess. I am someone who was born only being seen as a typical white girl to outsiders. However, I was adopted and raised into a Spanish family. I grew up in a way not connecting to any specific culture and so I don’t really feel like anything but a human being (I don’t really believe I can claim any specific culture or that I should claim one). However, I grew up hearing Spanish around the house and listening to mariachi music at fairs and eating tamales, pupusas, and huevos con chorizo. More then anything else I learned how to speak Spanish in the way of food, but I never became fluent and can understand far more then I could ever say. But for me it was the end of this poem that really got to me. There will always be words I don’t understand and so many stories that I will never hear and it felt like a great loss to me and the tears came. This poem was beautiful and in so many ways it broke my heart.

All of the poems in Peluda are filled with power. This is one of my favorite poetry books I have ever read and I hope that so many others find the beauty in it that I did.

As a note, an e-galley of this novel was sent to me via NetGalley by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way.

Wow, 2017 has been a stellar year for poetry and I can't stress enough how much I loved Melissa Lozada-Oliva's peluda without bordering on incoherent fangirling. Because there's something so deeply moving in her words and one thing is certain: she is a voice that was desperately needed in poetry. And her prose is something of magic, humor and complexity.

peluda is one of the best releases this year (one of those rare 5 stars) and something I feel incredibly honored to have experienced. If you're dubious about the page count, and how short it is, know this: she packs a serious punch. A. Serious. Punch. Seriously, I'm still kind of staggering back a bit from being knocked out like this. Lozada-Oliva, do it again. Thanks.

Following up fantastic releases like Depression & Other Magic Tricks, The Chaos of Longing, Smoke & Mirrors, Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately, I Am More Than a Daydream and The Princess Saves Herself in this One, PELUDA makes its mark as something new when it comes to what makes young poets prolific these days.

Her journey is just as intimate as you'd expect but there's something undeniably necessary to her story and what it means for diversity in literature. What it means for people who often have no voice or are muffled out by their counterparts. Young readers, young poets, are going to pick up this release and find themselves in Melissa like they may not in other poets.

Further, it gives us that honesty that is so desperately lacking and really, really compels readers. If you have 50 pages of work to show us, chances are it's going to be lackluster or sensational. Thank-fully, this is sensational. What I loved most about her prose is that it's got everything in it--a raw intensity that makes poetry so captivating, the complexities of who she is, a specific sort of humor and it's all woven so intelligently that you can't help but to feel like what you've read was truly something special.

And it is.

Overall, PELUDA is one of my favourite releases in poetry this year and it would be a tragedy not to pick it up. I can't wait to hear more from Melissa Lozada-Oliva and am eagerly keeping my eyes on her in the least creepy way possible.