Danyelis Rodriguez del Orbe considers herself "a spoken-word artist." A lover of performing arts, this Dominicana thrives on stage and has found that spoken poetry offers her the autonomy to tell her story as an undocumented Black woman growing up in the Bronx.
She describes her style as a freestyle compilation of feelings and truth. "Writing poems like a 'Poem of Reclamation for Papi' and 'Resistance for Mami,' I was able to have complex conversations with my family about how we see ourselves in the United States versus in our home country, Dominican Republic — and how we may have been misinformed about how best to relate to other Black people in the diaspora," she tells POPSUGAR.
For her, poetry is a tool that allows people to tell their own stories, embrace their cultural identity, and shape the way they see ourselves and how they want others to see them.
