The Plants Are Burning

The Plants Are Burning is an invitation into the vividly haunting memories of the oldest daughter in a Mexican family followed by the ghost of a generational curse. Through lack of punctuation and page numbers, shifts in time, narrator and language, the book is meant to emulate the journals Vianney used to write in as a child and teen. Inspired by surrealist and realismo magico artists, the pages carry the author’s deepest and darkest recollections that together intertwine a journey through the subconscious of a child navigating heartbreak and grief en la frontera. Though soul wrenching, The Plants Are Burning becomes a cathartic and healing love letter to every inner child within ourselves. Here lie the stories Vianney stored inside her heart as a child. Here are the plants that died as she grieved.

“Las plantas se queman
Las voy a apagar con mis lágrimas

Hay memorias que ni el fuego destruye”

About the Author

Vianney Harelly is a nostalgic poet and visual artist from la frontera Tijuana/San Diego. Her journey as a writer began at an early age in journals (the ones with the candadito) where she would write the words of a child who didn’t have the space or chance to verbalize her emotions. She discovered writing was her purpose in life the day she won a writing contest when she was in sixth grade and noticed her work got an audience full of strangers very emotional. In 2013 Vianney moved to San Francisco to be able to write about politics in Mexico and graduated in 2018 with a B.A in Creative Writing. Today she designs jewelry and writes to heal by revisiting old wounds and blocked memories in honor of her inner child. She hopes her poems can serve as a testimony as well as love letters to herself and her family/community to break a generational curse that has been breaking their hearts for decades. Her work is inspired by realismo magico, modernist painters, artistas like Ana Mendieta, Yayoi Kusama, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, everyone who came before her and everyone who will come after. The Plants Are Burning is Vianney Harelly’s second book.