“We defy translation,” Sandra María Esteves writes. “Nameless/we are a whole culture/once removed.” She is half Dominican, half Puerto Rican, with indigenous and African blood, born in the Bronx. Like so many of the contributors, she is a blend of cultures, histories and languages.
Containing the work of more than 40 poets—equally divided between men and women—who self-identify as Afro-Latino, ¡Manteca! is the first poetry anthology to highlight writings by Latinos of African descent. The themes covered are as diverse as the authors themselves. Many pieces rail against a system that institutionalizes poverty and racism. Others remember parents and grandparents who immigrated to the United States in search of a better life, only to learn that the American Dream is a nightmare for someone with dark skin and nappy hair. But in spite of the darkness, faith remains. Anthony Morales’ grandmother, like so many others, was “hardwired to hold on to hope.” There are love poems to family and lovers. And music—salsa, merengue, jazz—permeates this collection.
Editor and scholar Melissa Castillo-Garsow writes in her introduction that “the experiences and poetic expression of Afro-Latinidad were so diverse” that she could not begin to categorize it. Some write in English, others in Spanish. They are Puerto Rican, Dominican and almost every combination conceivable, including Afro-Mexican. Containing the work of well-known writers such as Pedro Pietri, Miguel Piñero and E. Ethelbert Miller, less well-known ones are ready to be discovered in these pages.
- Cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- About the Poets
- Permissions
- Elizabeth Acevedo
- February 10, 2015
- Regularization Plan for Foreigners, 1937
- Juan Dolio Beach
- Gustavo Adolfo Aybar
- Wallflower Mambo
- An Absolute Necessity
- Baseball’s Travelin’ Men
- Breaking Strength
- Morir soñando
- Miguel Algarín
- Survival
- A Mongo Affair
- A Salsa Ballet: Angelitos Negros
- Relish/Sabrosura
- Ray Barreto: December 4, 1976
- Proem II
- HIV
- Nuyorican Angel Voice
- Nuyorican Angel Papo
- Jane Alberdeston Coralin
- Táina Dreams
- Rosa’s Beauty
- For Black Girls Who Don’t Know
- Portorican Anthem
- Pull
- Make-Believe
- Peggy Robles-Alvarado
- Boca Grande
- Negrito Lindo
- ¡Bomba!
- When They Call My Name
- If Only They Knew
- Josefina Báez
- “Nosotros no somos como ustedes”
- Pedacito de mi alma
- “Com’on everybody clap your hands ooooh . . . ”
- My name is pure history
- Carmen Bardeguez Brown
- Remembrance
- Señora
- Oye, Miguel
- El Bronx
- Rican Issues
- Ariana Brown
- Recover
- Ahuacatl
- Coatl: An Old Myth & A Few New Ones, In Three
- A Quick Story
- Natalie N. Caro
- Natasha Carrizosa
- Pennies in my blood
- Mejiafricana
- Catch A Fire
- Adrián Castro
- Mokongo y to’ esa gente
- Incantation for the Word
- Misa caribeña
- Río Cortez
- I’m Forced to Imagine There Are Two of Me Here
- Havana Ghazal
- Trip for a While, After Curtis Mayfield
- Sandra María Esteves
- To These Poets
- Where I’m From
- Philosophy of Cool
- Puerto Rican Discovery Number One
- amor negro
- For Tito
- From Fanon
- Here
- Puerto Rican Discovery Number Three, Not Neither
- Mariposa
- Love Poem for Ntozake & Me
- Homage to My Hair
- 1980
- Ode to the Diasporican
- Poem for My Grifa-Rican Sistah Or Broken Ends
- Shaggy Flores
- Negritude
- Lucumí
- We, the Children of Juan Epstein
- Aracelis Girmay
- Arroz Poética
- Santa Ana of the Grocery Carts
- Teeth
- Ode to the Little “r”
- Running Home, I Saw the Plants
- Night, for Henry Dumas
- Modesto Flako Jiménez
- Gracias, Margarita Agramonte
- The Curse of the Goat
- El taxista
- Tato Laviera
- Tito Madera Smith
- Jorge Brandon
- angelitos eulogy in anger
- salsa of bethesda fountain
- commonwealth
- negrito
- Lady Liberty
- Mixturao
- Nideaquínideallá
- Raina J. León
- Two pounds, night sky notes
- Southwest Philadelphia, 1988
- Maldición de Borikén a los León: la ciega en paraíso
- Tango criollo
- bull | machete | bullet | laurel | time
- Esperanza Malavé Cintrón
- Chocolate City Latina
- This poem is about God
- mis hermanos
- Home
- Song for My Father
- Reynold Martín
- Wade
- Amie-Rica Sees a Therapist
- Mama’s Legend
- Tony Medina
- Dame un traguito
- Broke Baroque
- Poem for Víctor Hernández Cruz
- My Father Is a Brown Scar
- Arrival
- Broke Celebrity (Culture)
- Marianela Medrano
- Jamón y queso
- Cara sucia
- El corte
- Crossing El Masacre
- Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
- A San Diego Southern/African Night
- sister
- Message to Urban Sightseers
- ¡Hey yo/yo soy!
- E. Ethelbert Miller
- Panama
- Tomorrow
- Juanita
- Spanish Conversation
- Solidarity
- The Sea
- Aja Monet
- Una ofrenda
- Granma
- Left Behind
- Anthony Morales
- Clason Point Angel of the BackPark
- Anti Gentrification Spell
- Abuelita Abuelita
- Afro Latinidad, or Carlito Browniest
- John Murillo
- Practicing Fade-Aways
- How to split a cold one
- Renegades of Funk
- Sherman Ave. Love Poem
- The Corner
- Trouble Man
- Raquel I. Penzo
- Willie Perdomo
- Ten-Pound Draw
- The New Boogaloo
- Look What I Found
- Should Old Shit Be Forgot
- Side A (3:2)
- Miguel Piñero
- A Lower East Side Poem
- The Book of Genesis According to San Miguelito
- The Menudo of A Cuchifrito Love Affair
- New York City Hard Time Blues
- Noel Quiñones
- Afro/Rikan
- Wepa: Babel Tongue
- The Puerto Rican Maid Responds to Kendrick
- Gabriel Ramírez
- resilience
- what i learned in u.s. history class
- alive=blk
- Luivette Resto
- The Legendary Legs of the Rodriguez Women
- Painted Walls
- Garcia Folklore #27
- Solitary Encounters
- Louis Reyes Rivera
- no hole in punctured poem
- “the adverb.”
- “like Toussaint, so Martí”
- Excerpt from “cu/bop”
- The Disdirected
- Witness: Imagination
- Bonafide Rojas
- Notes On the Return to the Island
- Thirty Ways to Look at a Nuyorican
- Remember Their Names
- Mother
- The Old New Story
- The Creed of A Graffiti Writer
- Mayra Santos-Febres
- Nicole Sealey
- Instead of Executions, Think Death Erections
- Virginia Is for Lovers
- Even the Gods
- In Igboland
- Lorenzo Thomas
- Inauguration
- MMDCCXIII ½
- The Leopard
- Dirge for Amadou Diallo
- God Sends Love Disguised as Ordinary People
- Joaquín Zihuatanejo
- Archetypes
- We Are Because They Were
- What You Have Taken This Poem Redeems Co-written with Antwaun “Twain” Davis
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