Poems published in Breaking the Silence: Anthology of Liberian Poetry

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 Poems published in Breaking the Silence: Anthology of Liberian Poetry

 The editor of Breaking the Silence, Anthology of Liberian Poetry, Dr. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, in her introduction to the volume, has stated that this anthology is the first truly comprehensive collection of Liberian poetry. There was a first biased attempt by A Doris Banks Henries, a black American married to a powerful Liberian elite of Americo-Liberian extract. He had belonged to the Liberian  “upper class” made of former slaves, mostly from the American South, who had voluntarily returned to African shores. This African territory would later become Liberia, the first independent African Nation. Ms. Banks-Henries’ view of the indigenous Liberians, natives, and tribes, was that they were “primitive,” savages (intro, p xviii).” And “her biased account of (Liberian) history drowned out many other voices up to the 1980 Liberian coup when she fled the country (intro, p. xx).”

Jabbeb Wesley further states that Breaking the Silence, Anthology of Liberian Poetry, represents all Liberian people, “through the voices of early settlers, the revolutionary 60s, the turbulent 1980s of military coups, the…brutal war years of the 1990s to the 2020s (intro, p. xx).

The Jabbeb Wesley edited anthology is divided into three parts. Part I, Early Liberian Poetry (1800-1959). Here the poets wrote in Western form, mostly, about their place as the nation’s leaders. Part II, Liberian Poetry 1960-1989 saw the beginning of poets focusing on their landscapes and their people (intro, p. xx). Part III, “ Contemporary Liberian Poetry, 1990-Present, comprises writers who were experimenting with poetry in the turbulent, militarised 1980s and became more widely published from the the1990 war years into the twenty-first century, producing writers like K. Moses Nagbe, Althea Romeo Mark, and Patricia Jabbeh Wesley (intro, p. xxi). 

Part 4, “Emerging and Aspiring Liberian Poets,” according to the editor, “includes a new generation of Liberian poets, young, vibrant, and engaged in telling their own stories about inheriting a war they never saw and living in the ruins and poverty of postwar, stagnant Liberia (intro, p. xxi).”

 Breaking the Silence, Anthology of Liberian Poetry is one that every student of literature should have in their library. It is published by the University of Nebraska Press and is available on Amazon for purchase.

My own contribution to the anthology can be read below.

Who’s on Watch?

Our watchman stands guard in his dreams. 

It is there he keeps thieves at bay.

 

They strike at 3:00 am.

when rain is a dull beat on rooftops

that puts all but robbers to sleep.

 

Before the watchman dozes and dreams,

he beats and rattles an empty drum,

scrapes his cutlass along metal gates

and windows, wrought-iron barred,

to sound his dedication to our defense.

 

But thieves in the bush are also committed

and strike when the rain is most hypnotic.

 

In our wee morning stupor,

we dream of bandits

capturing the python

that steals eggs and chicken

from our coop.

 

But it’s the geese that

have been quietly smuggled away,

gone when we and the watchman wake.

 

Were the honking creatures sedated, too,

by the seductive rhythm of rain?

 

Only the moon truly monitors,

knows the secrets of bandits,

knows the key to stealing noisy geese.

 

© Althea Romeo-Mark

 

Visiting Khufu

 

Not getting younger in age, I decide to be brave, “walk the walk.”

It is Cairo and who does not want to see the pyramids?

We are here for the day to take in BC history

in its sand-dusted surroundings.

 

We are forbidden to climb sacred surfaces,

but my granddaughter cannot resist clambering

up the ancient stones to pose

before a guard waves a warning.

 

At the entrance to the tallest pyramid,

we see sweat-beaded tourists spilling out.

The climb demands the agility of goats.

And here I am, not nimble.

I challenge the years I have lived,

put all three scores and ten to the test.

 

We, from different lands,

a sampling of generations,

stoop at the entrance.

My daughter, my bolster, behind me,

we continue arching our backs

up the dim-lit path.

 

Well-spaced wooden steps

prevent slipping and sliding.

Banisters on each side

support our bending walk.

Sweat dampens our forehead.

As we climb, I convince myself

it is a once a lifetime thing

never be done again.

 

And finally, we reach Pharaoh Khufu’s tomb.

I glimpse my goat-footed granddaughter

and godmother patiently waiting.

 

Khufu’s not at home,

he long ago taken away for safety,

for the preservation of Egypt’s history,

secured from the hand of tomb raiders

selling ancient history to the highest bidder.

 

I am proud as Khufu is to be Pharaoh.

Hot and weak-kneed,

I feel as if I have conquered Mount Everest,

not something on my bucket list.

I am not one to die for fame.

This climb was enough.

 

© Althea Romeo-Mark

 Pyramids of Giza | National Geographic. All three of Giza's famed pyramids and their elaborate burial complexes were built during a frenetic period of construction, from roughly 2550 to 2490 B.C. The pyramids were built by Pharaohs Khufu (tallest), Khafre (background), and Menkaure (front)

 

 

The Cat-gods Have Fallen

 

Cairo cats surround us.

Not all are unblemished.

Many are skittish bags of bones.

Beauty alone cannot save

the homeless hustlers

roaming the dusty streets.

 

Some are artful dodgers,

their “nine lives” put to the test

during their daily darting

between speeding cars.

 

When not poking

around rubbish heaps,

cats seek refuge

under abandoned cars,

peep out hopefully

at big-hearted passers-by

who have more than

an affectionate pat

in their generous hands.

 

Cairo and cats run side by side.

We cannot see one without the other.

We pass them on the stairways,

spy them under restaurants tables,

watch them dash down alley-ways,

sprint across the courtyards

of mosques and museums.

 

Cats, you were once

revered as goddesses,

buried with your owners,

seen as protectors of pharaohs.

Oh, how low you have fallen.

 

© Althea Romeo Mark

 

Oya (Wind in Cape Town)

 

The trees bend, point right.

This is the way they say

with their branches.

 

The wind-goddess dictates.

Those crossing her path

must hold tightly onto themselves

and their possessions.

 

The punishment for

disobeying her orders,

GO RIGHT,

is the stripping of your dignity.

 

Oya threatens

to dislodge your grip on safety,

throw you to the ground,

strip you of your clothing,

steal your hat, pluck your hair-piece,

snatch knots, bandeaux,

pull at your earrings,

battle you for your handbag.

 

Do not resist her bullying.

The mighty trees

have succumbed to her will.

Who are you to disobey?

So, go left when she tells you to.

 

© Althea Romeo-Mark

 

*Oya is one of the most powerful African Goddesses (Orishas).  A Warrior-Queen, she is the sister-wife of the God, Shango.  She is the goddess of thunder, lightning, tornadoes, winds, rainstorms and hurricanes.  Her power is rooted in the natural world.

 

 

A Different Kind of Pied Piper 2020

 

It arrived. We did not see it cross the 2019 border.

We did not hear its whistle like a creeping hurricane.

It did not come with drumming rain nor sliding hurtling mud.

It didn’t rattle or shake like an earthquake.

Nor was it a spinning, crushing cone,

gobbling up and spitting out homes.

It didn’t spit fire, didn’t spew swallowing ash.

Neither was it the creeping grey mist in a film of doom.

It did not shout the bloody cries of war

nor arrived in any of nature’s devastating costumes.

 

It sent its unseen army out not just to scout.

But chose those who could not resist its call.

They fell in line behind it.

 

Many felt its hellish whip that left them racked in pain.

Phlegm filled up throats like a clogged moat.

 

Its victims remain secluded while it stole their breath.

And countless followed the invisible Pied Piper of death.

 

©Althea Romeo Mark

 

Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia, London, England, and in Switzerland since 1991.

Althea Romeo Mark’s upcoming publication,  On the Borders of Belonging, summer 2023, a chapbook, is expected to be published in summer 2023. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections, The Nakedness of New(2018) and If Only the Dust Would Settle, (English-German) 2009, and three chapbooks, Beyond Dreams: The Ritual Dancer (1989), Two Faces, Two Phases (1984) and Palaver(1978). Shu-Shu Moko Jumbi. The Silent Dancing Spirit (1974) is an anthology that includes poems by Althea Romeo-Mark and prose and poetry from participants in a Black Writers’ workshop conducted at the Department of African American Affairs at Kent State University.