In her forthcoming young-adult memoir, "Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American," Jasminne Mendez writes about the moment she knew she wanted to become a poet. She was around 10 years old when her father took her and her siblings to hear Maya Angelou speak and read poetry at Austin Peay State University. "I did realize in that moment that poetry had the power to move people, and I knew I wanted to do that. I knew I wanted keep writing and would always write," she tells POPSUGAR.
The daughter of Dominican immigrants, she grew up learning both languages and has written extensively about this duality and what being Dominican American means. She also writes children's books, young-adult novels, essays, and creative nonfiction, but she says poetry has allowed her to make sense of the ways she often felt "not enough" or "not from here or there." "It's allowed me to create a culture almost all my own, based off my intersectional identities and lived experiences," she says. "It's shown me that my cultural identity is ever evolving, and doesn't have to fit into one box or another and that it doesn't have to be like anyone else's."
