Melissa Lozada-Oliva

Generally speaking, I am not an enthusiastic reader of short fiction. I prefer novel-length works that I can sink into for a few days. There are, however, exceptions to this general statement—and Melissa Lozada-Oliva work definitely offers such an exception. Her dark view of the world and the ways she explores this through her stories engages. There's enough plot to keep a reader wondering "what next?" At the same time, there's also enough reflection by/about characters to give the stories show more richness. Her work avoids the "and this... and this... and this" that too many short stories become. At the same time, the stories never languish in stasis the way some short fiction does when we're visiting a character's interior understanding of the world.

If you like well-written, quirky fiction—and especially if you like being able to read such work a bit at a time, you'll be delighted by Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus Is Alive. I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. show less

poems that bristle and bite

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.)

mami does not understand why you like holes
in your shoes, in your tights, in your gloves.
what did you want to seep through, brown girl
with bangs? a song not written about you?
really, you were being a seamstress
just like your abuela in the living room making
skirts out of curtains, just making adjustments,
just making holes in places your new skin
was supposed to be.
("Ode to Brown Girls show more With Bangs")

i don't know if i feel in love
feel beautiful
or just feel
maybe we all need some rest
("Self-Portrait With Historical Moments")

I was so excited about this book that I did something I rarely do - namely, brave Adobe Digital Editions to read an ARC. (It is forever crashing my machine, okay.) Lately I've been digging poetry more and more and, between the book's stunning cover and the rave early reviews, I just knew I'd love peluda. And I did! I mean, I do!

Growing up, I always felt weird and awkward and hairy - hairier than most of the other girls around me, anyway, the popular ones in particular. Okay, so maybe I'm one of the white girls Lozada-Oliva writes about in "Yosra Strings Off My Mustache Two Days After the Election in a Harvard Square Bathroom" -

the ones who don't shave
for political reasons, the ones who took
an entire election cycle to grow
out a tuft of armpit hair

- which is to say my Italian-German self is only "hairy" when held up to modern beauty standards, e.g., not terribly hairy at all. Maybe I can't really relate. Even so. I adored all of the twenty-one poems that make up peluda just the same.

Over on her Facebook page, Lozada-Oliva describes peluda as "my yellow chapbook about my hairy latina feels," which seems as apt a description as any. Lozada-Oliva tackles such weighty topics as beauty, assimilation, racist microaggressions, sex, shame, depression/metal health stigma, alienation, George Zimmerman, and, yes, body hair: clumps and heads and volumes and rivers of hair. Melissa's Guatemalan immigrant mother Josefina was/is a beautician, so her schooling started early. Her words radiate with ferocity and hunger and wit that doesn't cut so much as claw and devour.

There's so much to love here, but one piece really stands out: "Wolf Girl Suite," which is really a story told in five acts. With all the elements of a feminist horror flick, I am aching to see this one adapted for the screen. Coming to a theater near you, Halloween 2021?

"Ode to Brown Girls With Bangs," "You Use Your Hands So Much When You Talk," "You Know How to Say Arroz con Polla but Not What You Are," "What If My Last Name Got a Bikini Wax, Too," and "We Play Would You Rather at the Galentine's Day Party" are other favorites too. But they're all pretty great.

fyi, there are a number of videos of Melissa Lozada-Oliva's spoken word poetry up on YouTube, and it's even more powerful in person. Lozada-Oliva's delivery is sometimes surprisingly funny, with a dark sense of humor that isn't always - plainly? - evident in written form (at least not to me, anyhow). Here are just two that grabbed me by the amygdala and refuse to let go.

https://youtu.be/me4_QwmaNoQ

https://youtu.be/x-Y9zgOSUnk

 


Table of Contents

Origin Regimen
Maybe She's Born With It, Maybe She Got Up Early
Ode to Brown Girls With Bangs
Lip / Stain / Must / Ache
I'm Sorry, I Thought You Were Your Mother
You Use Your Hands So Much When You Talk
AKA What Would Jessica Jones Do?
You Know How to Say Arroz con Polla but Not What You Are
My Hair Stays on Your Pillow Like a Question Mark
What If My Last Name Got a Bikini Wax, Too
The Women in My Family Are Bitches
I Shave My Sister's Back Before Prom
We Play Would You Rather at the Galentine's Day Party
Wolf Girl Suite
It's Funny the Things That Stick With You
Mami Says Have You Been Crying
Self-Portrait With Historical Moments
Light Brown Noise
I'm So Ready
House Call
Yosra Strings Off My Mustache Two Days After the Election in a Harvard Square Bathroom

http://www.easyvegan.info/2017/11/03/peluda-by-melissa-lozada-oliva/ show less

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Content warning for violence against women.)

We all know the story of Selena Quintanilla. The Tejana pop star who was murdered by her best friend and the manager
of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar.
There are heroes.
There are villains.
There are fans.
There are girls trying to find
their reflection in a rippling
pond, and then feeling startled when a piece of gum falls out of their mouth.
There is a frog that thinks
the show more gum is a fly and chokes to death. Where were we?
This is a story of mirrors,
or what happens
when you bring the mirror
back from the dead and when you look in it you see yourself
eating yourself.
This is about You,
except when it’s not about you.
This is a love story.

***

the female killed her best friend, because only one woman can exist at a time, whoops!
honestly so sad that she’s dead but like, what if she lived long enough to like a tweet from a pro-life organization idk?

***

Another one died today and the world felt darker because we were left with ourselves.

***

I loved peluda, Melissa Lozada-Oliva's 2017 book of poetry, so I pounced on Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse the second it popped up on Edelweiss. Even though I don't know much about Selena (I was in high school when she was murdered), the idea of exploring celebrity worship by resurrecting an iconic pop star proved an irresistible hook. That, and Lozada-Oliva's poetry is enchanting: fierce, with dark sense of humor and cutting cultural insight.

In this fantastical collection, complete with a cast of characters a la Shakespeare, Melissa holds a seance to bring Selena back from the dead. The details are sketchy, but the ritual involves a flash drive, some period blood, lipstick, and a bottle of Fabuloso.

Rounding out the cast are Yolanda Saldivar, who murdered Selena once and is apt to do it again; Papi/Abraham Quintanilla, both desperately happy to have his daughter back - and outraged at Melissa's transgression; She, "the shadow side" (a stand-in for all women, or so I assume?); Las Chismosas, "the eyes and the ears" who fill in the story's gaps and are reminiscent of Shakepseare's Weird Sisters; and You, meaning you and I, the readers, "the consumer and the consumed."

At first, Selena is a nebulous being, like a "fuzzy version of a girl." But as she continues to crystallize, her creator begins to disappear. Meanwhile, both Melissa and Selena are being stalked by Yolanda. And as news spreads of Selena's miraculous rebirth, more dead celebrities begin to appear (picture it: A Celebrity Prom!).

Most of the time, I felt like Dreaming of You worked better individually than as a whole; each poem is its own beautiful creature, but together they only kinda-sorta functioned as a cohesive interrogation of popular culture and celebrity worship vis-à-vis Selena. To be fair, I'm kind of a dunce when it comes to poetry, so maybe I just didn't get everything that Lozada-Oliva was putting down. Entirely possible! But Selena takes a loooong time to appear - the seance scene is nearly one-third of the way in - so I'm not entirely sure that's it. And on more than one occasion, I lost track of who was narrating.

Even so, Dreaming of You is an intriguing and thoughtful collection, chock full of memorable one-liners like these:

"She wears a Freudian slip and loves the way her nipples feel underneath it."

"Why are people in relationships always taking naps?"

"I can see myself crying over a body but also being the body."

"It will always be now and we can’t do anything about it."

"What is the word for getting someone to fall in love with us during karaoke?"

Bonus points: Lozada-Oliva manages to reference Annie Wilkes and Sharp Objects (the audiobook of which I'm listening to RIGHT NOW, after having just/finally seen the minseries!) in one poem. *chef's kiss* [insert "I understood that reference" gif here] show less

This book caught my eye at the library when I was collecting books for my readathon TBR stack, but as it happened I read the entire book that same day instead. I was charmed from the very beginning -- from the graphic cover to the quotes selected for the epigraph to each and every poem contained within -- poems dealing with class, race, immigration, identity, beauty ideals, and (most importantly) hair. As someone who has always been defined by my curly hair, and as someone who has refused to show more shave my body hair for most of my life -- I sometimes identified, was sometimes fascinated, and sometimes woke to new aspects of my white-girl privilege that I'd never considered before.

I laughed, I learned, I cried.

I recommend this highly. show less