#6: Elizabeth Acevedo
#AFROLATINASTOKNOW
***
The next Afrolatina I am honoring is someone I had been hearing so much about over the years, yet never read her work. Then I googled her. And like any good online stalker I fell in love with her and her work. The first piece I ever heard by the extraordinary poet, Elizabeth Acevedo was her poem SPEAR!!! And then I heard her read, HAIR, and then AFROLATINA!!! Y bueno… that’s it. I was hooked.
Here is a small excerpt of Elizabeth’s poem HAIR:
“My mother tells me to fix my hair.
And by “fix,” she means straighten.
She means whiten.
But how do you fix this ship-wrecked history of hair?
The true meaning of stranded, when trusses held tight like African cousins in ship bellies, did they imagine that their great grand-children would look like us, and would hate them how we do?
Trying to find ways to erase them out of our skin, iron them out of our hair, this wild tangle of hair that strangles air.
You call them wild curls.
I call them breathing.
Ancestors spiraling.
Can’t you see them in this wet hair that waves like hello?
They say Dominicans can do the best hair. I mean they wash, set, flatten the spring in any loc – but what they mean is we’re the best at swallowing amnesia…”
~ by Elizabeth Acevedo, Poem title: Hair
This Afrodominican woman aside from being an inspiration has what we call the JOY! That’s one of the things I love about her. You can go to any image on her IG and feel the JOY and her spirit! Her new book “The Poet X” being published by Harper Collins can be preordered!!! Get yo copy.
***
#afrodominican
#Dominicanrepublic
#afrolatina
#afrolatinx
#poet
#spokenword
#latina
#writer
#idpad
#ourstoriesmatter
#unapologeticallyblack
#africandiaspora
#afrolatinos
#lhm
#latinoheritagemonth
#afrolatinosfilm
#caribbeanwomen
#activist
#afrolatinadiary
#writersofinstagram #poetsofinstagram#elizabethacevedo #caribbeanwriters
The Writer and The Story 