Resistance is the theme of the 3rd online August 2020 edition of DoveTales. The anthology features fiction, poetry, non-fiction, art, photography and young writers contest winners.
It is guest-edited by Brad Wetzler. I am quoting a part of his editor’s note. The editor’s
note can be read in its entirety on the link below:
Last winter, when we at Writing for Peace chose “resistance” to be the theme for year’s DoveTales, we couldn’t have predicted the way in which “resistance” would become a central theme in the unfolding of this year. Certainly, we were aware that the Trump Administration had been so arrogantly unraveling our democratic institutions. We were aware of the Administration’s creep toward fascism, its fetishization of Power and Money, and its obsession with further alienating and exploiting the poor and people of color. So, yes, we thought “resistance” would be a suitable topic of discovery for our writers of DoveTales.
However, we had no
idea that 2020 would unfold in such a way that “resistance” would be the
perfect theme, the only theme that would make sense. But who could
have predicted this year’s events? Then came the pandemic, and further power
grabbing by the Trump Administration to take advantage of the American people’s
suffering and chaos. And then came the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis,
and the weeks of protests in the streets of hundreds of American cities. Which
were then followed by the Trump Administrations hardline, constitutionally
illegal response of using federal troops against its own people. As this
edition of DoveTales goes to bed, the pandemic rages on and the Trump
Administration continues to send federal troops into our cities to arrest and
batter American citizens. Today, it feels as if we are living a nightmare, a
far cry from any American Dream proposed by our forefathers.
https://writingforpeace.org/resistance/
Three poems published in the 2020 summer edition of the
DoveTales Literary Anthology
https://writingforpeace.org/althea-romeo-mark-3/
Inside Out
Our
world forced indoors, we wear our lives inside out.
Its
stitches laid bare, we see the rough seams of routines.
Escape
routes blocked by invisible wardens
who
dangle their power in our faces,
we
learn to navigate confined spaces.
Conversations
are no longer fleeting.
We
are not coming from or hurrying to work.
We
are not too tired to speak.
There
is no need for procrastination.
Time
is more elastic.
We
worry that the ugly within
will
rear its head like a gargoyle.
Life
inside out becomes
an
overheated furnace
upon
which we clamp a lid
to
suppress fury, fiery word and fists.
But
let’s dig deep within ourselves
to
unearth the words and mediums
that
define this time,
clear
the mental wood shavings
hiding
the carpenter,
unveil
the writer, painter, seamstress,
sculptor,
wood-carver…
Turn
on the light within you.
There
can be fortune in misfortune
when
our lives are inside out.
© Althea Romeo Mark 2020
Aunty (On Robben Island)
We have come by boat to
Robben Island,*
climb onto waiting buses
for a prison tour.
I have been surrounded
on boat and bus
by an Indian family from
Durban.
“Let aunty go first,”
one of the Indian women says,
as the bus parks before
the main prison gate.
The words, like a
stinging lash, bruise my pride.
Aunties, in the
Caribbean,
Africa, India, are older
women,
who are shushed out of
kitchens,
told to sit down, not
lift a hand.
They sit on porches,
verandas, watch life go by,
are served their meals
and cups of tea.
Their active life is
placed on a shelf
to gather dust for a
decade or three.
Some aunties think this
is heavenly.
But this “aunty” is not
ready to let others do her living.
She may be “aunty” in
appearance, but not “aunty” in mind.
At what age do we cross
borders into the visible aunty realm?
Do we become “aunty” at
sixty or seventy?
In Switzerland, where I
live, aunty is a crown rarely worn.
It is a title of honor
for which I am not ready.
This aunty is hanging
onto her dancing shoes,
and her thinking cap
until
her marathon in time
reaches the finish line.
© Althea Romeo Mark 2020
Robben Island (Afrikaans: Robbeneiland) is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometers (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. Political activist Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars before the fall of apartheid and expansion of the franchise to all residents of the country.
Myths That Once Crushed Our Freedom
How
did we withstand the power of Caribbean myths—?
La
Diablesse, the beautiful devil-woman
luring
us on a lonely road,
the
Mami-Water calling from
the
rivers’ edge, an atoll in the sea,
her
charming song seducing unsuspecting men.
The
Soucouyant, shedding her skin at night,
her
flight seen in a ball of light,
before
entering homes to suck victims’ blood.
Ligaroo,
the shapeshifting man, with power over nature,
who
takes on the shape of animals;
the
Doen who snatches the souls of the unbaptized,
only
a cross around your neck guarantees protection.
And
passed on, too, were the tricks and trades
of
capturing the minds and souls of reluctant lovers
with
“sweat rice*” and charms homemade.
Invincible
myths ruled with an iron fist
on
every Caribbean island,
each
island having their own take on the enemy,
each
meting out their own interpretation
on
how to live our lives in their shadows.
They
gripped our imagination,
imprisoned
us in fear, dictated our behavior,
curtailed
our freedom after the sun went down.
The
younger, the less you are untouched.
We
may laugh at the old tales
but
they are not completely dead.
Every
now and then they taunt us.
But
we fight the power they hold
push
back lores that lurk
in
moments of weakness,
in
times of darkness.
Althea Romeo-Mark, © 2020
sweat rice - A ritually prepared meal of rice intended to trap (tie) a man in a romantic relationship. Women prepare the meal by cooking rice and squatting over the steaming pot allowing the mix of condensation and bodily juices to "sweat" into the rice.
Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and internationally published writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia, England, and in Switzerland since 1991. She has published six collections of poems.
Althea,
ReplyDeleteThanks for these rich and beautiful poems! Hardhitting but hopeful too.
Phillis
Oh, my dear Althea, how delicious these three poems are. How long I had been away from reading your work. Reading these was like coming home. What amazing ability you have to create new ones, continually, just as wonderful as any previously read.
ReplyDeleteThe poem I read earlier today alluded to this kind of practice within African communities. (sweat rice)
ReplyDeleteAnyone reading Althea Romeo's poems would be inspired to become a poet and perhaps write as clearly, as effortlessly and as poignantly as she does. But this would be futile. Althea is in a lane of her own and others would do better to stay in their own lane. Except, of course, they would be content to admit that to write poetry as she does is impossible.
ReplyDeleteAnyone reading Althea Romeo's poems would be inspired to become a poet and perhaps write as clearly, as effortlessly and as poignantly as she does. But this would be futile. Althea is in a lane of her own and others would do better to stay in their own lane. Except, of course, they would be content to admit that to write poetry as she does is impossible.
ReplyDelete