In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Yael Valencia Aldana‘s poetry collection Black Mestiza is a stunning exploration of identity, gender, and complex connections to our ancestors.
darlene anita scott wrote of the book:
“‘We are of the Caribbean / our names mean salt water in the veins . . .’ This seems to be the book’s intention: to reveal the sting and salve, like salt water, of the Caribbean mestiza identity and experience. The poems don’t side with the sting or with the salve, which is a refreshing perspective for such a historically loaded and still deeply personal topic.”
In her own words, here is Yael Valencia Aldana‘s Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection Black Mestiza:
Music was so important to me when writing this collection. It’s a palette cleanser, inspiration, a workout companion, and a reset button. This book is me on the page, my blood, guts, and feelings. I worked through the good and the difficult things in my life, like my mother’s death, racism, love gone wrong, and love gone right. Some individual poems were hard to write, but in many ways, this collection wrote itself with this playlist as a friend throughout the process.
Nina Simone, Feeling Good
“Feeling Good” this song is the overall vibe of the book. It’s about being in the zone, feeling the sun on your face, the water rushing by, and enjoying the moment. Experiencing life isn’t always fun, but if we are lucky, we have a new day to “Feel Good.” Nina Simone sings from the bottom of her soul. The song is very upbeat with its lyrics, but you can feel the pain in her voice. You can feel she’s been through it, and now she’s on the other side. Black Mestiza is about being in the middle of the process and making it through to the other side.
Britney Spears, Work Bitch
This song is my work anthem. When writing this collection, I would get tired and wonder, do these poems matter? Am I really a poet? Maybe I should just stop writing. I would ask myself, “How bad do you want it?” “Keep going!” This song is that how-bad-do-you-want-it thought as music. You want it? Well, you better work, honey.
Diana Ross, Love Hangover
I love this song. There is magic in this song that captures the headiness when you are first in love, and nothing else matters when nothing can pull you off this high. The Rodrigo suite in the book is about a very loving but difficult relationship. Being with Rodrigo was always a “Love Hangover.” This song just feels like the experience of being with him.
The Chain, Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Nicks’ and Lindsey Buckingham’s voices harmonize in a strangely haunting and beautiful way at the beginning of this song. This song is gorgeous, yet one of pain and longing. This is also an apt description of the Rodrigo suite. “For You” is one of my most beautiful poems. It is about two people who complete each other but also make each other crazy. Amado de mi Alma further explores the paradox of this relationship of both deep love and difficulty.
When You Were Young, The Killers
I often think that Rodrigo and I were supposed to meet in New York City when I was seventeen and he was twenty-one. At that age, I met someone who looked a lot like Rodrigo and had similar mannerisms. When I met him again deep in adulthood, I recognized him. It seemed like we had met before “When we were young.” Or if somehow we were supposed to meet. This song feels like it’s about that meeting that was supposed to occur but never did.
Theresa’s Sound-World, Sonic Youth
Some of the songs I have loved for years became a Rodrigo song. Theresa’s Sound-World uses Sonic Youth’s signature technique of “a wall of sound.” The music becomes so saturated with notes and instruments that it becomes multi-layered and impenetrable. You sometimes can’t identify the instruments played because there are so many. Then, the song breaks into quieter moments, and the momentum builds again. This song feels like Rodrigo and my relationship. It would build to an impenetrable wall of love where we almost couldn’t stand it and then break into quieter moments. The poems “Aquarius Sun, Leo Rising, Virgo Moon,” and “Amado de mi Alma” are examples of this ebb and flow.
Bad Girls, Donna Summer (Gigamesh Remix)
Not everyone agrees, but I find electronic music to be very emotional. This song is about bad girls having the time of their lives when they are bad. They are supposed to be punished and shunned for not following society’s rules. But they are in their own world living their best lives, like some of the women who are subjects in my book: Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Sandra Cisneros, and Magaret Atwood. My “Bad” girls!”
End of Line, Daft Punk
The whole Tron soundtrack by Daft Punk is Fire. Since first hearing it, I have never gotten over this music. I have listened to one of these songs nearly every day for the last fifteen years since it came out, and “End of Line” is THE song. It’s very short. It is just over two minutes long but is easily the most remixed song and my favorite part of the album. When I listen to “End of Line,” I hear someone coming into their own power, as in my poems “Black Mestiza,” “Las Mestizas,” “Titan,” and “Legacy.”
Fresh Tendrils, Soundgarden
Some performers seem to be channeling something beyond themselves. Their work is so perfect that it defies explanation and is dipped in the divine. Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell is one of those writers/ performers. The song is about waiting a very long time for something to happen, letting go, and giving it everything you have. Some of the poems in the collection were written thirty years ago. The collection has been coming into being for a very long time. The poems “Open Your Mouth” and “We Are Very Witchy” embody that feeling of giving everything.
Mi Gente, J. Balvin and Willy William (featuring Beyoncé)
This song is about “my people,” and so much of this book is about “my people.” from my grandmothers, my mother, my son, my friends, my lovers, and my ancestors, I will never know. I will call them my people because they are my people. I called on all of them to help me write this book. Some came at night or in dreams, and encouragement whispered when I wasn’t awake, but they came, and the book was born from their light, my people.
Yael Valencia Aldana, an Afro-Latinx/e poet and writer, is the author of Alien(s). Aldana, her mother, her mother’s mother, and so on are descendants of the Indigenous people of modern-day Colombia. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in Torch Literary Arts, Chapter House Journal, and Slag Glass City, among others. She teaches creative writing in South Florida and lives near the ocean with her son and too many pets. Find her online at YaelAldana.com.