peluda

by Melissa Lozada-Oliva

One of the most original performance poets of her generation, Melissa Lozada-Oliva has captivated crowds across the country and online with her vivid narratives. Humorous and biting, personal and communal, self-deprecating and unapologetically self-loving, peluda (meaning “hairy” or “hairy beast”) is the poet at her best. The book explores the relationship between femininity and body hair as well as the intersections of family, class, the immigrant experience, Latina identity, and much more, all through Lozada-Oliva’s unique lens and striking voice. peluda is a powerful testimony on body image and the triumph over taboo.

Genres: Poetry, Feminism, Latinx, Nonfiction, Race, Womens, Latino

60 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 2017

About the author

Melissa Lozada-Oliva is an American poet and educator based in New York. Her poem, "Like Totally Whatever" won the 2015 National Poetry Slam Championship, and went viral.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humorous and biting, personal and communal, self-deprecating and unapologetically self-loving, peluda (meaning “hairy” or “hairy beast”) is the poet at her best. The book explores the relationship between femininity and body hair as well as the intersections of family, class, the immigrant experience, Latina identity, and much more, all through Lozada-Oliva’s unique lens and striking voice. peluda is a powerful testimony on body image and the triumph over taboo.

“the loser of the war: has the best memory.
the winner: gets to forget.”

What originally caught my attention with this collection was the vibrantly powerful book cover: 


Then, as always, I looked the author up online to see if any memorable quotes of hers were shared. And was taken back by quite a gripping one:


Source

I continued on with raised expectations that were mostly met with the occasional poem here and there in the collection. Such as:



The highlighted responses made my mouth drop with surprise. An utterly strong poem from start to finish.




This one poem cemented my decision to check out the first season of Jessica Jones.

This collection full of creativity, feminism, love, bodies would be recommend for anyone looking to spruce up their poetry shelf.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Expected publication: September 26th, 2017

Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Peluda, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!


This review and more can be found on my blog.

[fer · Rating 4 out of 5]

É sobre cabelo. É sobre pelo. É sobre sobrancelha grossa. É sobre depilação. É sobre ser imigrante latino no estados unidos. É sobre ter que rejeitar a sua propria cultura, a sua propria lingua, pra se adaptar em um país que nem te quer ali de qualquer forma. É sobre o cabelo de mulheres latinas: longo, grosso, pesado, escuro. É sobre mulheres brancas, loiras, ruivas, estadunidenses, com cabelo mais finos, com pelo mais fino, falando para mulheres com pelos mais grossos que elas precisam ‘’se amar mais, parar de se depilar, sabia que isso vem do patriarcado? do male gaze? da misoginia? voce tem que ser mais livre, parar de se depilar’’ (como se fosse tao facil assim, como se fosse facil assim pra todo mundo, mesmo pra quem tem cabelo grosso, pelo grosso, sobrancelha que se junta, pelo que cresce rapido). É sobre imigrantes e os trabalhos que restam pra eles. É sobre mulheres que tem pelos. Fur. Thick fur. É sobre preconceito com latinos. É sobre esteriotipos de mulheres latinas. É sobre cabelo pelo sobrancelha depilação pressao estetica misoginia racismo preconceito latinas mulheres brancas PELO.

(como voces podem perceber, esse é um assunto emocional pra mim. se voce tambem sofre com pelo, ter muito cabelo e cabelo muito escuro muito grosso muito visivel cabelo que vira um problema, se voce tem neura com pelo com depilaçao, a sensaçao da pele toda esfolada depois de uma depilaçao com cera, se voce esta familiarizada com o cheiro de cera, se ja gastou dinheiro com depilaçao a lazer depilaçao com luz depilaçao, quem nao consegue parar mesmo sabendo do peso do male gaze do patriarcado dos padroes de beleza absurdos da mulher sem pelo: esse livro nao vai ser um abraço. vai te deixar desconfortavel. quem mais sofre com pelo sao quem mais fica desconfortavel com pelo. mas voce vai se sentir pelo menos um pouco entendida, vista)

(É um livro de poemas. E diferente desses livros de poemas que estao ‘’na moda’’ hoje em dia, com poemas pequenos que nao pegam nem metade da folha. Poemas pequenos estao na moda. Esse livro manda um belo fodase pra isso. Sao poemas grandes, de 3, 4 paginas. Sao poemas crus. raivosos. Sao poemas importantes)

[Kristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book of poetry that focuses on beauty, immigrants (and being a minority), feminism, and so much more. Lizada-Oliva has a way of writing that reaches out and pulls you into her experiences as a Latina woman living in America.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

"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."

[Scarllet ✦ iamlitandwit · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 / my Spanish is my third birthday party: half of it is memory, the other half is that photograph on the fridge /is what my family has told me / if you ask me if i am fluent 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

One of the things I love about reading is that I can find stories and narratives that relate to my experiences, even if we're completely different. I found myself reflected in a lot of Melissa's very intimate and very frank collection of poems & I knew that I would because her whole premise of the "hairy" woman is Latinx culture. Here I am, listening to Mon Laferte and reading Peluda like the Latina that I am and I enjoyed every second of it. There are just SO MANY parts that are just like damn I #relate because that's the life we live, like !!!

My top favorites have to be: AKA What Would Jessica Jones Do?, Lip / Stain / Must / Ache, Wolf Girl Suite, & Yosra Strings Off My Mustache Two Days After the Election in a Harvard Square Bathroom. But I seriously thought all her poems were good .

I find that her voice and the way she writes is so funny and so familiar that it's like she's an older sister I've never had. After finishing this and flipping through my favorite ones twice, I went and found her on YouTube because I had to listen to her read these.

amazing amazing amazing -- I definitely look forward to more from Melissa in the future

[nana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ridiculous book.
I literally gave it 1 star for that one little verse:
"maybe my heart is 2 big"
now, obviously, I'm not a Latina nor an immigrant, two things that this book tackles. The thing is, I would have loved to discover things about those two "themes" instead of reading about "body hair" and how grossed out the author is.
As far as I know, the title means "hairy beast" I didn't know that when I read the first few pages and I thought how original it was to talk about pubes, waxing and being a hairy person in general. Then it was the same idea over and over, a girl who's insecure because of her body hair, a girl who's waxing and is in pain, a hairless boy in love with a hairy girl, thick eyebrows, tweezers.. I mean WHY IS IT SUCH A BIG DEAL

[Hafsa | حفصہ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: Received a free digital copy of the book through Netgalley.

I don't know how to express how I felt about my reading experience of this collection. Intimate would be the word. It was like reading the author's memoir in verse. Fierce, honest and so very personal - all things which made me absolutely love every single poem in this collection, making it a struggle not to connect with every word.

There were so many intricately woven themes explored in this collection from woman and their relationship with body hair, being an immigrant and the struggle of belonging, to the complexity of a mother-daughter relationship, racism, sexism and patriarchy as well as body stereotypes. The amount of diversity of themes in a mere 50 pages is definitely a feat for the author, not only because it is hard to do that but also because it is difficult for the reader to connect with all of them – something I didn’t experience while reading. I laughed, cried and experienced a plethora of other secondhand emotions wholly.

Moreover, I felt that because a theme like women's relationship with body hair was explored in relation to the author's history, it made the reading experience of it much easier to relate to and just more focused. Admittedly, some poems did felt like prose shaped like poetry by the space between the verses which for a reader like me did affect my opinion. Nevertheless, I loved this collection from a poet who had a distinct voice and delivered such strong, fierce and intimate poetry along with a tad bit of much appreciated humour.

Favourites: "Origin Regimen", "Ode to brown girls with bangs", "I'm sorry, I thought you were your mother", "You know how to say Aroz con Pollo but not what you are", "The women in my family are bitches", "Wolf Girl/Cam Girl/Girl Girl", "Mami says have you been crying", "Self-Portrait with historical moments", "House Call", "Yosra strings off my mustache two days after the election in a Harvard Square bathroom".

[majo☽ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuerte, errático, latino, feminista y poderoso.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

**Warning: this text may contain spoilers** This book was not written for people like me. (The narrator is pretty emphatic about that, but I don’t want to give away delicious endings.) Still, I’m so glad I read it.

Peluda means “hairy.” Mi peluda, my dark-haired girl? Or… hairy she-beast? I don’t speak Spanish, and I’m not sure how negatively or positively to construe “peluda.” The poet, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, explores negative views of herself, as a Latina with dark, thick hair (on her body as well as her head), but she’s also (re)claiming the word.

The collection includes about twenty poems, a few of them straddling the line between prose poetry and micro-flash fiction. Some poems are written in second-person, letting readers see the world through the poet’s eyes. Through poems like “Origin Regimen,” Lozada-Oliva tells the story of an adolescent girl born to immigrant parents (from Guatemala and Colombia, if I remember correctly). Her Latinx parents worked first as house cleaners, then in beauty shops—styling, dyeing, and ripping out dark hairs. Peluda is a symbol for the narrator and her experience—she, a dark hair, to be ripped out. She, a source of much focus, shaping, and unfortunate disgust in a majority-white culture.

There are so many layers to the metaphors Lozada-Oliva is working with. The book is just amazing. For example, in “You Use Your Hands So Much When You Talk," blue fluid is salon disinfectant is a swimming pool of disinfectant is a womb… In Lozada-Oliva’s lexicon, Peluda is dark, Latina hair, monstrous, with fur and teeth, chased by white townspeople who, for some reason, have torches, hated, powerful, wolf girl, medusa, wild, feral, forests of trees that hide a witch's cabin, growing even after we die; something to be clipped and waxed and ripped out by her mother at the salon, to shave off your sister's back preparing for prom night, to be the problem clogging your drain that you can't name... yet "when a kiss is planted on the back of the neck, / the hair follicles click back to life. / the buds shake themselves / awake. / they rise from the grave we insist on digging. / the hairs stand up. / a million ancestors / rooting / for the home team."

One of the funniest poem titles was “Maybe She's Born With It, Maybe She Got Up Early.” "AKA What Would Jessica Jones Do?" imagines Jessica Jones as a powerful, solitary Latina instead of "once again... some angry white girl.” "My Hair Stays on Your Pillow Like a Question Mark" cleverly conveys, through the punctuation and spelling in its first two lines, that it is to be read in the voice of a valley girl (think Cher/Alicia Silverstone in CLUELESS).

Some of my other favorite poems were "You Know How to Say Arroz con Pollo but Not What You Are,” "What If My Last Name Got a Bikini Wax, Too,” and the amazing “Wolf Girl Suite,” where Lozada-Oliva loosely retells the plot of an old movie, WOLF GIRL BLOOD MOON. I *loved* the ending of the suite, when the poet plays with what a plot hole is..

The collection carries readers to right now, post-2016 US presidential election, with a last poem that highlights common threads in the experiences of Latina and Muslim women in America.

Bonus quotes from PELUDA, by Melissa Lozada-Oliva…

"this has always been about mothers / the spaces they cut themselves into."

"the girl who is always fixing, snipping away / at the bits of herself that are always becoming"

"i am latina / or i just like being watched by men / or i just like leaving marks on their shirts"

"THE FOREST ONCE COVERED HER BODY LIKE SOMETHING TO BURN DOWN OR FIND A WITCH'S HOUSE IN SO SHE RUNS INTO IT…”

"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...."

"my first tattoo: abuelita as medusa, / with pearls snakes for hair."

[Adriana Martinez Figueroa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rather short, I would've liked some more poetry to dig my brown hands into. And yet, this handful was colored gold and was heavy in my heart with meaning and latina love. Gracias, Melissa 💕

[vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

My new way of consuming poetry: read it, then go on YouTube and watch the poet perform. I read this for a reading challenge and enjoyed a lot of this. I felt myself seen.

Favorites: AKA What Would Jessica Jones Do?, You Know How To Say Arroz Con Pollo But Not What You Are ("My Spanish"), The Women in My Family Are Bitches, Mami Says You Have Been Crying, and I Shave My Sister's Back Before Prom.

[eli nolet · Rating 2 out of 5]

i feel a bit bad giving this book such a low review. there were a few very strong pieces in here that moved me and were so beautifully written – but for the most part it felt a bit too repetitive and overdone. i agree with another reviewer here, that this reads as if the author intended to write a novel but then cut it up into poems. i would have rather read the novel.

[abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I appreciated the message, and enjoyed the perspective - but really did not like the style of writing.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the wall about this one, didn't love it but didn't hate it either.

[Laly · Rating 5 out of 5]

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, Lozada-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" Lozada-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.

[Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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.

[Jos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book of poems about growing up brown and female in the United States. Different culture than my own but I could relate to many of the statements.

Also, anyone who writes a poem about Jessica Jones is alright in my books.

[Ximena Cervantes · Rating 4 out of 5]

¿Creo que este libro tiene poemas muy flojos? Sí, pero se lo perdono e incluso le pongo cuatro estrellas porque también tiene poemas que me encantan y que en su momento casi casi me cambian la vida, cuando los escuché como slam poetry y me enamoré irremediablemente de Melissa por ahí del 2018.
Dejo los links de mis cuatro poemas favoritos del libro.
Bitches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIwdn...

Mami says have you been crying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhTik...

You know how to say arroz con pollo but not what you are (o My Spanish)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE-c4...

I'm Sorry I Thought You Were Your Mother (after Ocean Vuong)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwzNw...

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | 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.

[Olivia Chanel's Stories in Space · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you, Button Poetry, for my ARC of peluda. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review; this does not affect my opinion. Any quotes mentioned below are taken from the ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

I have fallen in love with the poetry collection peluda and for me, what makes peluda such a unique poetry collection is how brutally honest and charismatic it is. It’s funny, deep, and a must-read for contemporary poetry lovers. peluda is feminist and about body hair, family, friendship, Latina identity, and the immigrant experience. I believe poetry collections about, and written by, women of color should be celebrated, and this collection is no exception.

jessica jones is so dark-haired she must be Latina
i pretend she is so that i am
not once again rooting for some angry white girl

so i tell myself that
all of this throwing a heater out of the window
must be chingona
all of this rude lonely girl must be bruja
all of this breaking & entering & you shoot at me,
i’ll pull the bullet out of my ruined jacket &
shove it up your ass with my pinky finger
must be mujerista

I love how Melissa Lozada-Oliva puts everything on the page and it just speaks to you. The writing in peluda is magnificent and I love the vivid imagery in Lozada-Oliva’s poems. The rhythm and overall way she portrays her experiences, it’s just my favorite. Furthermore, I also love how this book is not afraid to shy away from the speaking its truth, no matter what that is. My favorite poems in this collection are 1) Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe She Got Up Early 2) Ode To Brown Girls With Bangs 3) AKA What Would Jessica Jones Do? 4) The Women In My Family Are Bitches 5) I Shave My Sister’s Back Before Prom and 6) We Play Would You Rather at the Galentine’s Party.

on our own til infinity! bitches
the vengeful violent
pissed prissed and polished
lipstick stained on an envelope
i’ll be damned if i’m compliant! bitches

If you love contemporary poetry then you need to read peluda. It will speak to your heart and take you on a journey few other poetry collections will. This book celebrates Latina women and their experiences, it touches on what body hair and our relationship to it is and how it looks so differently for different people. This book is feminist, badass, and beautiful. I’m deeply in love with peluda and I know you won’t regret putting it in your shopping cart. It’s a must-read for all poetry lovers.

This review is set to be published September 26, 2017, on my book blog Olivia Chanel's Galaxy of Books.

[McKenzie Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle

This book was okay. I have seen videos of a few of Melissa Lozada-Oliva's poems and liked them so I couldn't wait to read these. However, I think many of them work better as spoken poetry rather than in written form. The format of the poems were kind of weird and it was often difficult to know how they were meant to be read. Also, while I enjoyed individual poems, the book as a whole felt very repetitive.

I should have guessed from the title what the poems would focus on. After the first one, I was happy to relate to the whole "hairy" aspect of the poems. As someone who has thick hair and can't go a day without plucking before my unibrow reemerges, it was refreshing to me to read about someone who is so open about her body hair and how it affects her life.

However, the poems about hairiness go on and on. By the end, the theme seems overdone and annoying. Yes, we get it, body hair is annoying. Seeing how other people freak out about your body hair is annoying. But there are other aspects of life too. It's not all about hair. Other things happen. I got real sick of reading about hair after a few pages.

Overall, an okay collection of poems, but I enjoyed the individual videos of spoken poetry more.

[Saadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"before this, yosra jokes
about lining her hijab with safety pins
while we waited for a white family
to clean up their table, the white father
stared at yosra for too long
& said i’m so sorry, referring to the crumbs
& coffee stains he & his family had made
they had made this mess not thinking
we would have to sit here in it.
still, at the same time, we tell him,
don’t even worry about it, because we have done
all of the worrying for them our entire lives because we have learned to forgive
every space we enter, because our mothers
have taught us to bring cleaning supplies"

[Gazala · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading this book. with a hope to read something that was really relatable. It claims be writings of a hairy Latina girl. I hoped to find something deep, something meaningful...but I found the poems to be complex, without much reason...it did not have what it takes to had me turning pages to read more....

[Krystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional poetry collection! Her writing illuminates the immigrant experience with depths of emotion. She evokes the trauma of colonialist white supremacist xenophobic misogyny!

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey, there. It's been almost 2 months since I finished reading something and I don't really remember how to do this, so bare with me.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me have a digital copy of this beautiful little book in exchange of an honest review. This will be the first of many.

I got to read this book by chance. I was browsing my newsfeed on Facebook one day some months ago, and this friend shared a video of a girl reciting poetry. It was powerful. The poem that the girl read was titled 'My Spanish' according to the video's title, but now I know that it is actually called 'You Know How to Say Arroz con Pollo But Not What You Are.' For some reason that video, that girl and that poem stuck with me.

Some time later, I logged into NetGalley after many months and started browsing the poetry section in particular and voila, there was Peluda by Melissa Lozada-Oliva in the Read Now tab (this is actually my first read from NetGalley and I haven't had any request approved so far, so having it in the Read Now tab felt like a blessing). I automatically knew that this was the book of the same girl of the video. I don't remember if it was mentioned somewhere in the video, but I just knew.

I read it in just an hour, and that's because I purposely read it slowly so that I could take it all in. I have to admit that I was impressed by how many feelings I felt while reading these poems. I didn't expect to like them so much. Many of them are about body hair, hence the title Peluda ('hairy' in Spanish), and how women go through life waxing their hairs to please society, but particularly how it affected the author, obvioulsy, since she says to be quite hairy and, on top of that, she belongs to a family of beauticians that always told her that beauty is pain and she should just put up with it. She's also latina, and she makes sure to show that part of her in her poetry.

I truly believe her poems are outstanding, and it makes me think of all the people obsessed with Rupi Kaur's books when here we have much deeper and meaningful art. I do like Rupi Kaur, but her style is very simplistic and sometimes less is not more, sometimes we need to ink all our thoughts on paper and just let it all out. I felt passion in these poems. And that's the best kind of poetry that I can think of.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good. poetry feels so communal and so intimate/personal at the same time. like i am reading the author's diary, and ashamed to have been caught reading it, but also knowing that it was intended for an audience. i'm new to reading poetry, and this was a great introduction. collection organized around themes of feminism, latina womanhood, beauty/self-worth, identity, BODY HAIR. also feels distinctly of this time, references to 2016 election and other political and cultural reference points that ground the experience. each poem can stand on it's own, distinct, and yet taken as a whole you can see the golden thread weaving among them all and connecting them. is this what poetry is!? if so, i like it!

the poem "you know how to say arroz con pollo but not what you are" is particularly good.

"wolf girl suite" is wild, particularly the way she messes with pronouns in "iii. deep in the dark i'll surrender our heart"

some things i underlined:

this has always been about mothers
& the spaces they cut themselves into.

you - niñita lotioning up stretch marks
that don't have memories yet.

we don't want to be the destinies our bodies
carved out for us with knives passed down
by generations of fathers & fathers

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

tonight ice cream is clinging to my arm hairs
like a dress that will never fit me again but you don't
even notice so i don't get to talk about myself /

[...] hey, remember when all of our favorite
songs hadn't happened 2 us yet / we didn't understand
the sorrow but we were loud /
we made so much / noise

[dovesnook · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ but honestly, watch Melissa perform spoken poetry because that’s 100% 5 ⭐️! The poems in this short collection are personal, and rather raw at times, to the artist but also have themes that’ll deeply relate to dark-haired Latines who shave their legs in the morning and have a five o’clock shadow that same day. There were a few poems, like the Galentine’s one, that had me -as a hairy woman- both nodding and thinking.

[Dash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some poems went over my head but there were a couple of lines I'll take with me forever.

"jessica jones is so dark-haired she must be latina i pretend she is so that i amnot once again rooting for some angry white girl"

[꧁ ꕥ James ꕥ ꧂ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Focusing on themes of feminism, beauty, and being a minority, Lozada-Oliva really pulls the reader in to her experiences as a Latina woman living in America.

Very insightful!

[Ghislaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modern poetry collection about the loving and shaming of bodies, growing pains and generational oppression in immigrant households. The writing is very unique and really stays true to who I think Melissa is as an artist and human being: honest af, funny, talented and generous.