Danielle Boodoo Fortuné, a young, published poet from
Sangre Grande, Trinidad, displays a maturity and wisdom beyond her age. Like all poets, she feels the strong
compulsion to write. This overriding desire is described as “a tree growing in (her
belly) that bears ripe, wet stars.” Unlike many young poets, under the age of
twenty-five, she is not focused on self. Her world is not confined to the thematic
sphere of love and lost love. Danielle’s
poetry goes behind our masks, digs behind our psychological and social facades. She extends her curiosity beyond the personal
and attempts to unravel the complexities of the human personality, community
and tradition. In order to break down these barriers, she uses strong imagery,
sometimes violent and noisy, which reflects the force needed to penetrate our
communal and cosmological secrets.
Danielle often speaks about her calling. A few poems,
which dramatize the need to answer her vocation, are “Quiet,” “The Poem Is
Already,” “On Not Becoming Useless,” and “Water Rushes like Memory.” Writing keeps her “from becoming that woman who
walks to the edge of the earth and falls/leaving not one truth behind.” Writing
for Danielle is breathing. It is life
itself.
In her poem “Mother,”
the central character sips tea and the heat from the tea cup “rises
up/whispering warm comforting secrets /only she can understand.” Here we begin
the exploration into the workings and mystery of the human mind. The speaker
sees a mother, an avid gardener, who is not afraid of “sharp things, shards of
buried glass, and crawling things” in the ground. These potential dangers, that
the mother faces in the process of “planting hope,” are also symbolic of the
“shape of sharp things” buried in her. One cannot help but think about the consequences
of keeping secrets for whatever reason, benign or catastrophic. In this particular case, we learn that the
mother is hiding “a secret flower that is/growing in her,” and “it can only be
seen in morning light/and only blooms when she does.”
Danielle, in my mind, poses many questions in the poem, “Chameleon
Thoughts.” Who are we really? Do we try to control our unpredictable instincts,
the unreasonable parts of our being? Can
we change temporarily? Or are we constantly changing? Is change a permanent
state? Do we change our external masks to suit our moods like we select our
clothing to suit our mood on a particular day? We are as mysterious as the
universe. The following lines suggest that we struggle
constantly to maintain the same persona, and sometimes change is beyond our
control. Control here is a key word. “I wear this chameleon around my neck/to
keep myself from changing/I go from fire to fire/with each new skin/spin
prophecy/secrete visions/shed my face again/with the turning moon.”
The poem, “Forres Park” addresses our lack of social
responsibility. It delves into the mindset of some communities that “pretend to
know nothing of old women/ who were raped and beaten in their beds/ while the
owls mourned and the crickets wept.” This is a familiar story to many of us who
live near rundown neighborhoods. People who inhabit them are ignored and
abandoned because of their low social status. These are neighborhoods which are
imprisoned in our stereotyped worlds. They are condemned because of low income,
racial and religious differences. We find these differences threatening.
“Crossing” explores the mythology of the dead masking as
the living as it searches for its rightful home. “And when the tides of your
sleep ebb/what masks permit you/to cross the continent of waking?” Or one also
thinks of the moment of restless sleep, where, daily problems, masked as
nightmares, hijack our subconscious. It is a frightening world, that state of
wretched limbo.
Danielle’s use of imagery is sharp, cutting, and unforgettable.
They are well displayed in
“A Poem on the World’s Last Night” where writer speaks of
“strangers waiting to suck wax from (her) wings,” “walking home with a throat full of noise and
glass,” “… silent women/with eyes like rainstorms, nursing/buttoned-up
hurricane hearts.” In “The Man Who,” we learn about “the wars in … morning…/
knives tucked into… curving smile.” On display here is a fantastic word-palate
for those who are visual artists.
Danielle Boodoo Fortuné is a
poet I would invest in. She represents a
younger generation of Caribbean poets who are independent of British colonial
influences. She is symbolic of a
generation of Caribbean poets who have found their own voice and should
therefore be nurtured and given the opportunity to place the Caribbean on the
world literary map standing as equals with other nations.
Althea Romeo-Mark
Caribbean writer and educator
Thank you for sharing this, Althea, and thank you so much for writing it. It means so much.
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