coffee. tea. books. community.
Fri, Sep 15
|St Ann & Holy Trinity Church
"Plantains and Our Becoming" with author, Melania Luisa Marte & Cleyvis Natera.
Please join us to welcome two beautiful, Afro-Dominican writers and creators to celebrate the debut poetry book, "Plantains and Our Becoming."
Time & Location
Sep 15, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
St Ann & Holy Trinity Church, 157 Montague St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
About the Event
About the Book:
A powerful poetry collection in the vein of BLACK GIRL CALL HOME and IF THEY COME FOR US, about identity, culture, home and belonging.
PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING is an imaginative, blistering, beautifully written poetry collection about identity and history on the island of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to celebrate and center the Black Diasporic experience.
Through the exploration of the themes of self-love, nationalism, displacement, generational traumas, and ancestral knowledge, this collection uproots Black stereotypes while creating a new joyous vision for Black identity and personhood, one that is deeply grounded in the heirlooms and teachings of Black celebration as well as preservation.
The collection is structured in the following sections: Part I: Daughter of Diaspora, exploring immigration and identity within the U.S. Part II: A History of Plantains, exploring the aftermath of colonialism, displacement and gentrification for Afro-descendants.
About the Author:
Melania Luisa Marte is a writer, poet, and speaker from New York living in the Dominican Republic. Marte's poetry explores many subjects including her Caribbean roots, intersectionality, and self-love. Her most viral poem “Afro-Latina” was featured by Instagram on their IG TV for National Poetry Month and has garnered over 9 million views. Her work has also been featured by Ain’t I Latina, Mitu, The Root, Teen Vogue, Facebook, Telemundo, Remezcla, Pop Sugar, and People En Español. PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING is her debut poetry collection.
About the Conversation Partner:
Cleyvis Natera is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel Neruda on the Park. She studied literature and creative writing at Skidmore College and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from New York University. Her fiction, essays and criticisms have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, URSA Story, TIME, Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration, Gagosian Quarterly, The Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus, The Washington Post, Memorious, The Kenyon Review, Aster(ix) and Kweli Journal, among other publications. Cleyvis teaches creative writing at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City and at the Low-Residency M.F.A. Program at Antioch University in Los Angeles, CA.