Bios:
Angélica María is an internationally touring Chicana poet & singer from Los Angeles, residing in Mexico City. She is a finalist for both the National Poetry Slam 2018 and The Women of the World Poetry Slam 2019. Her work uses storytelling to highlight femme narratives within latinidad in order to heal & empower.
Her work has been featured on digital platforms such as Tedx, Facebook, where her poem “Femenina Divina” was featured in their 2020 campaign “My People My Power” and racked up over 5 million views.
Angélica’s work has also been featured in literary works such as The Breakbeat Poets Anthology: LatiNEXT, 2020 on Haymarket Books, Girls Becoming Women, 2021 on Workman Publishing, and The Latinx Poetry Project on Alegria Publishing 2020.
In 2019 she signed with Conscious Campus to bring her knowledge of poetry & writing workshops to university campuses across the country. Some of these campuses include Harvard University in Boston & Pratt University in New York.
She currently resides in Mexico City where she is working on her latest project “Feminina Divina” an EP that works as a fusion of music & poetry inspired & derived from the power of the divine feminine.
Melania Luisa Marte is a Black writer, poet, and speaker from New York living in the Dominican Republic. Marte’s poetry explores many subjects including her Caribbean roots, Black feminism, and self-love. Her most viral poem “Afro-Latina” was featured by Instagram on their IG TV for National Poetry Month and has garnered over 9 million views. Her work has also been featured by Ain’t I Latina, The Root, Teen Vogue, Facebook, Telemundo, and People En Español.
Marte ranked 5th at the 2018 Women of The World Poetry Slam Competition, and a finalist at the 2018 Individual World Poetry Slam Competition in San Diego, California. Melania won two Audie Awards for her most recent voice over work co-narrating novel-in-verse, Clap When You Land by National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo. Marte’s latest commissioned work includes a commercial poem for McDonald’s ‘Hacer Mas’ scholarship campaign as well as starring in and writing a unique poem for Facebook’s 2020 Heritage Month celebration.
When she’s not writing or performing, you can find her resting in her hammock or meditating as a self-professed ‘nap queen.’ Marte’s current writing project is exploring Black preservation through land cultivation, herbal-ism, and naps as a bridge to connect to ancestral knowledge.
Program:
Together, artists Melania & Angelica have curated a spoken word showcase entitled “Adios America” an interactive poetry performance tackling issues of immigration, anti-blackness, and intersectional feminism within latinidad. In their set they spotlight these crucial issues using a compelling fusion of song, humor and literary magic. Their set is an hour long and offer a 30 minute Q&A afterwards, along with a writing workshop to introduce students to the power of reclaiming narratives.