The Genesis of my writing

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The Genesis of my Writing

Main Street, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands on a Sunday

The word genesis has its roots in Latin and Greek, and is defined as “a beginning or origin of anything, coming into being.” The genesis of my writing began at age twelve. I was a student at St. Peter’s and Paul Catholic Middle School in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Our teacher, a nun, Sister Stephanie, had given our class a descriptive composition to write for homework and I wrote about my dog which had been stolen and found months later. A lot of emotion was put into it. Sister Stephanie immediately recognized that I had a flair for writing and asked me if I would like to enter the essay into a competition, but I, being painfully shy, refused to participate.

St. Peter’s and Paul High School, St. Thomas, V.I

Later in high school, when we had the opportunity to select a class of our choice (an elective), my creative interest turned to drawing and painting and a lot of my free time was dedicated to painting with water colors.   I was so fascinated with this method of expression that my time spent on it contributed to my failing an important Latin test in my second year because I had arrived late.

During this time I was confident enough to enter a contest promoting St. Thomas’ annual carnival which takes place in April.  I painted a picture of a moko jumbi,* the Caribbean stilt walker and dancer, and won a prize.

          The moko jumbi, a fixture of carnival and Christmas throughout the Caribbean, is of West African origin. Slaves brought this tradition with them to the Caribbean.  It is a tradition that is now getting stronger with time.

University of the Virgin Islands

During my third year at the College of the Virgin Islands (now University of the Virgin Islands), I took part in a student exchange program at the University of Connecticut. While there, I signed up for an art course. My art teacher, though, did not see the next great artist in me. 

I was homesick, having left the Caribbean for the first time and having encountered freezing weather and blizzards for the first time. In art class, I consistently painted islands shores filled with coconut trees.

I have kept some of the drawing and paintings that I did in that art class to remind me where I came from and how far I have to go. 

The last decent drawing I did was one of my father sitting in his favorite rocking chair.  He was fast asleep when I sketched him.

It was not until I enrolled in a Caribbean Literature course at the College of  Virgin Islands, during my final year, that the writer in me woke from its sleep. The course was taught by Dr.David Gershator who challenged his students to write a poem about what it is to be a West Indian.  

This topic drew out the writer in a few of us. I had written a poem and didn’t realize that I had.  

When Dr. Gershator handed my paper back to me, he asked me if I had written poems before. I answered honestly. “No.” But it was the beginning and I have not stopped writing since.

Reunion photo at a reading organized by Elaine Warren Jacobs of The Voice Inside literary group, St. Thomas, V.I. In the photo Elaine Warren, Althea Romeo-Mark, Dr. Gershator, Bertica Hodge, Dr. Vincent Cooper,2002)

Dr. Gershator became a mentor to a group of young budding poets. He began a literary journal, in 1971, V.I.P. (Virgin Islands Poetry) which, we, his students regularly contributed too.  His wife, Phillis did the design and layout.

In the introduction to the journal, Dr. Gershator states that:

Summer 70’ I read a well-known poem, “Le paysan declare son amour,”by Haitian poet Emile Roumer*. I ask my Caribbean

Literature class if anyone could try writing something that would capture the flavor of their own West Indian World. I was wondering

 if I’d had any takers… A few days later June Esannason came in with “Native Woman,” emulating Roumer… I had no idea that

 this tentative exercise would galvanize the class into a veritable guild of apprentice poets. (VIP, 1971)

Le paysan declare son amour

High-yellow of my heart, with breasts like tangerine

You’re tastier to me than eggplant filled with crab

You are the tripe in my calalou

The boiled dumpling in my peas, my bush tea brew

You’re the salt beef rind of my heart’s delight

My cornmeal mush with syrup that slips down my gizzard

You are a steaming dish, mushrooms with rice

Crisp fries and small fish done brown

My taste for love follows you wherever you go

Your butt is a big basket with meat and fruit packed to overflow.

(Emile Roumer, translation from French Creole,Dr. Gershator)

          

Emile Roumer

VIP back cover

Regular contributors to VIP, published by the C.V.I (College of the Virgin Islands), were Judith Botsford (Boston), Janet Collins (St. Thomas), Vincent Cooper (St. Kitts), Michael Daniels (Texas), Enid Dowling (St. Croix), June Esannason (St. Thomas), Richard Glover (Queens, N.Y), Howard Gumbs (St. Kitts), Bertica Hodge-Hendrikson (St. Thomas), DeEtte Krueger (Michigan), Althea Romeo (Antigua-St. Thomas) and Glen Wilcox, art contributor and art instructor. Bertica Hodge-Hendrikson and I became the most prolific writers in the group.

Nager Man

Bocrah man*

lashing whip

‘pon back

Nager man

lashing whip

‘pon back

When slavery

done gone

long time.

Colonialism,

independence,

cultural identity.

Nager man

lashing whip

‘pon back

*White land owner

© Althea Romeo-Mark, VIP, 1971

Some of us participated in poetry workshops (conducted by Allen Ginsberg and Judson Jerome) and poetry readings on local television.

Breadloaf Inn, Middlebury, Vermont

Dr. Gershator became my mentor and secured me a waitership-work study scholarship to attend the prestigious Breadloaf Writers Conference* in 1971 in Vermont. 

At this conference I attended workshops, participated in poetry readings, was invited to my first tea party, and worked as a waitress in the cafeteria as part of my scholarship.

In 1974, Revista Review InterAmericana, University of Puerto Rico, San Germain,  was the second Caribbean journal to publish my poems and I appeared in several of their issues after that- Revista Review Inter-Americana, Vol.3. No. 4, Winter, 1974, Vol.4. No.1, Spring, 1974, Spring, 1975,  Summer,  Volume 6, 1976,  Vol. 6. No. 2, Winter 76-77, Inter American University,  Puerto Rico. Three poems published in the 1975 edition are  “ I Am Juju,”  “Old No Teeth Mama,” which won a poetry prize at the Cuyahoga Writers Workshop in Ohio, and “Festival on the Beach.”

 I was a teaching assistant in the Department of Pan-African Affairs, Kent State University at the time some of these poems were published.

My passion for writing poetry was further fuel by Dr. Edward Cosby* head of the then Institute for Pan-African Affairs (later the Department of Pan-African Affairs). He motivated the budding poet that I was and assigned me a creative writing course.  This gave me the opportunity to stimulate creative minds and nurture writers like myself. 

The end product of this course was a poetry collection entitled, Shu Shu Moko Jumbi: The Silent Dancing Spirit. This anthology, published by the Department of Pan African Affairs, is still listed in my publication history to this day.

While at Kent State University I joined writers groups, took part in readings at local pubs and continued to send out my work for publication.  

Some of the journals that published my work at that time include: Proud Black Images, Ohio State University, Ohio, 1972,“A Tribute to Black Men,” Black Ascensions Literary Magazine. Dept. of Black Affairs, Cuyahoga Community College, Ohio, June 1972, Human Issue. Vol.4. No. 2, Dept. of English, Kent State University, 1973, Flyer Two.  Vol. 5. No. 2. Dept. of English. KSU, 1974, Echoes of the Unlocked Odyssey. Ed. Sal St. John Baltaci, New Jersey, USA, 1974, Welcome to My Pad. Afro-American Society, Case Western University, May, 1974, Black Odyssey: A Search for Home, The Harvard Advocate, Harvard University Press, Mass. USA,  1974, Handmade Soap: Anthology of Poetry. California, 1975, Hell Is for Those Who Glitter: An Anthology of Black Creative Writing, Dept. of Pan African Studies: AAA Monograph Series, Vol. 3. No.1, Spring Quarter, 1974, Kent State University, Kent Ohio, Sun Jewels: Anthology of Virgin Islands Poetry. Ed. Valdemar Hill,  Val Hill Enterprises, 1975, Black Ascensions. Cuyahoga Community College, Winter, Summer, Ohio, 1975, “Research Papers in Afro-American Studies,” JUJU, Spring, Case Western University, Ohio, 1975.“Excursions,” New Kent Quarterly, Spring. Kent State University, Ohio, 1975, Shellys, Shelly’s Book Bar, Kent State Univ., 1975 and Ptah, Dept. of Pan-African Studies, KSU, Ohio.

My first collection of poems, Palaver (Downtown Poets Co-op, New York, 1978), was published with the help of my mentor, Dr. David Gershator.

Reading poems in St. Thomas, 2002

It was Dr. Gershator who discovered and nurtured the poet in me.  All budding writers are blessed if they have mentors who push and encouraged their mentee to follow their dreams. 

I am not a Pulitzer Prize winner, nor I am lauded with a list of prizes. But, I love what I do and will continue to write; I will continue to learn from other poets and become a better writer.

Every poem I write should be better than the last. I will strive to give the best of me that I can. This is the challenge I give myself. It is my hope that I inspire others to do the same.

Notes

A moko jumbie (also known as "moko jumbi" or "mocko jumbie") is a stilts walker or dancer. The origin of the term may come from "Moko" (a possible reference to an African god) and "jumbi", a West Indian term for a ghost or spirit that may have been derived from the Kongo language word zumbi.

Émile Roumer (5 February 1903 - April 1988) was a Haitian poet.^[1] Roumer wrote mostly satirical poems and poems dealing with love and nature. Born in Jérémie, he was educated in France before studying business in Manchester, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Roumer

The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by The New Yorker "the oldest and most prestigious writers' conference in the country."^[1] Bread Loaf is a program of Middlebury College and at its inception was closely associated with Robert Frost, who attended a total of 29 sessions. (Frost lived in nearby Ripton.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_Loaf_Writers%27_Conference

Edward Warren Crosby (born November 4, 1932), is an African-American professor/administrator emeritus, in the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University (KSU). As a pioneer in the field of Black Education his most notable accomplishments include the creation of the Institute for African American Affairs, the predecessor of the Department of Pan-African Studies and The Center of Pan-African Culture at KSU. The Pan-African Studies Department (1969) and the Center of Pan-African Culture (1970) were two of the first institutions of their kind to be established at institutions of higher education.^[1][2]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_W._Crosby}