[2] She was a voracious reader, consuming magazines and newspapers from the capital, as well as works by Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Simone de Beauvoir, Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

[3] She moved to Cartagena to complete her secondary studies at Pius X College (Spanish: Colegio Pío),[1] gaining a mastery in both English and French.

[2] She then attended normal school in Cartagena,[4] before returning to Quibdó to begin researching the differences in slavery on Colombia's Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.

[1][2][7] She published poems and essays assessing the cultural, historical and political issues facing Colombia, incorporated religious and romantic themes, as well as humor.

[6] Though Martínez believed she was misunderstood and had been largely overlooked by literary critics and editors because of her gender and race, she hoped that her work would eventually be recognized.

[1][3][6] She did receive some recognition during her lifetime, as she was included in a book Mujeres Intelectuales de América (Woman Intellecutals of America) by the Central Information Bureau of Caracas, Venezuela.

[7] She was invited by the poet Jorge Rojas [es], who at the time was serving as the first director of the Colombian Institute of Culture to tour the country and give recitations of her poetry.

[7] They released Cantos de amor y soledad (Songs of Love and Loneliness), the most complete collection of her works, before Mena returned to writing the biography.