Pushcart Prize Winner
'We are of the Caribbean / our names mean salt water in the veins...' This seems to be the book's intention: to reveal the sting and salve, like salt water, of the Caribbean mestiza identity and experience. The poems don't side with the sting or with the salve, which is a refreshing perspective for such a historically loaded and still deeply personal topic.
~darlene anita scott, author of Marrow: Poems
Black Mestiza is astonishing in its beauty, sincerity, sonorous power, and passion. The cry of loving, complicated women, the call of the sea, the spill of writerly ghosts, the clash of languages, the press and pull of Florida and the speaker's ancestors lift and embolden this collection. Black Mestiza is a searing, complex love letter and we're all so fortunate Aldana is writing poetry right now. A glorious collection.
~Jennifer Maritza McCauley, author of When Trying to Return Home and Kinds of Grace
Yael Valencia Aldana's Black Mestiza investigates a complex matriarchal genealogy as we learn in the first poem: 'Mother, no men stay in our family.' The sacred feminine of goddesses and the abuela, the Anglican prayer book and voodoo, Instagram and bodegas, Margaret Atwood and Angela Davis, Zora Neale Hurston and Sandra Cisneros, all swirl in these poems of wonder and reclamation. Through litany, abecedarian, haiku, cento, pantoum, and stereoscope, Aldana creates a world of connection, becoming her own materfamilias as she raises her son. She is an important voice to be reckoned with: 'Because you cannot hear me / doesn't mean I am not singing.'
~Denise Duhamel author of Second Story
The speaker in Yael Valencia Aldana's debut collection, Black Mestiza, declares early on, 'I know how to stand in more / than one place at a time.' These poems bear witness to her lyric standing, both firm and fluid, the speaker's many simultaneous identities kaleidoscopically explored. Herein, a missing grandmother is summoned, along with a birth mother, an adoptive mother, and the speaker as mother: 'ancestors come to the fore,' advisers across eras and oceans. Black Mestiza welcomes many voices, many twined histories, in this powerful reckoning.
~Julie Marie Wade, author of Quick Change Artist and Skirted
In Black Mestiza, Yael Valencia Aldana delves into the depths of identity, legacy, gender, heritage, and mestizaje, deftly weaving voices and texts. As the poet celebrates her afrolatinidad, she names those who came before: Angela Davis, Lucille Clifton, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Zora Neale Hurston. Populated by these along with parents, grandparents, and lovers, the poetic world emerges as a complex and nuanced one where the poems affirm Aldana's poetic prowess.
~Norma Elia Cantú, author of Meditación Fronteriza: Poems of Love, Life, and Labor
Please place a copy of Yael Aldana's Black Mestiza in the hands of every child whose roots, they said, were too complex to be cataloged, who grew up guessing who would claim them and what name they'd choose for themselves. We were these children, made of bits: of history and disparate longings, of heres and theres. We measured our mixed skins to figure out our ingredients, looking to one day be loved. Well, this book is that love—the lyrical testament that we, too, were here.
~Anjanette Delgado, author of Las bichotas and founding host of "CaribeFemLit" on Hablemos, Escritoras
We inherit more than blood—in Yael Valencia Aldana's thrilling collection, Black Mestiza, the poet explores what persists through generations: race, community, mothering, family ghosts, and the grit we need to survive this fraught nation. In poems that are clear, honest, emotionally stirring and attentive, Aldana etches her authentic identity on the page to solidify her distinct and beautiful inheritance.
~Ashley M. Jones, author of Reparations Now! Poems
