Plantains and Our Becoming
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”
“This poetry collection travels all the way from the Dominican Republic and Haiti, to New York and Texas, all the while dipping into things like displacement, nationalism, and the wisdom of ancestors in order to write a new definition of Black identity and joy.” —Book Riot
“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”
“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
“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