Day 17 of Susan Abbott’s Seeley Challenge was spent reading Althea Romeo-Mark‘s poetry collection
“The
Nakedness of New” — a book I especially liked for the many wonderful, colorful characters… populating her work. She is a master at giving the
reader a strong feeling for and about the people in her life. Yes, she draws on
the harrowing life-and-death experience of modern immigrants, the nakedness of
being new and anew again and again — but into this is woven the people — the
family, friends, neighbors, local beggars, whores, rebel soldiers, etc. Even
the rivers in the end feel like people to me. My response here has been to
write a short series of quatrains evoking the feel, using some of Romeo-Mark’s
language. Words in quotations below are Romeo-Mark’s turn of phrase.
Enjoy and I encourage you to buy the book and meet
the more richly fleshed out versions for yourselves.
A Series of Character Quatrains
after Althea Romeo-Mark
I.
Immigrant
traveller war refugees
conditions at home had them to their knees
arrive in a new land feeling naked and raw
yet relief to escape the grip of death’s claw.
II.
The African, European and Indigenous mix
the Caribbean diaspora brewed in global geopolitics
from Asia, South America what the world begot
a spicier “bouillon” than North America’s bland
pot.
III.
Uncle Ben
cracks his “whip of words”
It seems to tame Winston’s anger
Maggie should have flown away with the birds
to evade her domestic danger.
IV.
Grandma goes on about Phyllis’s fat
always some woman judging about that
the SlimFast, the diets, she slashed herself red
Phyllis decided she’d be better off dead.
V.
You carry the “suitcase of your mother’s cautions”
to the “nakedness of the new”
be glad that you do
the cautious clothes always in fashion.
VI.
Pauline — by the Holy Spirit overcome
arrives a “verbal tsunami” to her tongue
a garbled cloud of praises end in a clear “Jesus
Christ!”
with a drizzle of “hallelujahs” so divinely spiced.
VII.
Granny Willette, I wish we could have met
Legend has it that “you weren’t easy” but then
again yet
that’s what makes a strong women
not easy to forget.
Susan Abbott
17 August 2025
Here are some
of the poems mentioned.
The Nakedness of New
In this place there
are
no monuments to my
history,
no familiar signs
that give me bearings,
no corner shops
where food
can take me on a
journey home.
Fresh-faced in an
old country,
the new lingo is a
gurgle in throats.
Strange words
assault my ears,
throw me off
balance.
I seek refuge in
mother-tongue wherever I find or hear it.
Hunger for my
people’s voices has forged odd friendships.
But they have begun
to fray and I cling to shreds.
Cold stares gouge
an open wound.
Winter’s icy fangs
bite deep down.
A “foreigner” is dust
in the eye and
many believe I have
come to plunder their treasures.
Come, hug the cold
away, rock me in your arms,
clothe me in your
warmth,
tell me everything
will be okay
Pull me back from
the cliff’s edge.
New World Bouillon
You need a curious man called Columbus who carries
a large portion of courage in his bowels.
Add men of similar mind; men who have nothing to lose.
They are the salt and pepper of adventure.
This is only the beginning of the melting pot now
known
across the Atlantic as the New World.
Add the smell of stories of roads paved with gold
and battles with blood-thirsty Ciboney, Caribs, and
Tainos
that catch the noses of restless Spaniards, Portuguese
and
Scions of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings,
tired of the tasteless broth of Old World life.
Ravenous for change, they throw themselves
into this stew and, still dissatisfied with the taste,
they add strange ingredients—black slaves,
indentured servants, Chinese and Indians from the
East.
This is not a North American soup,
but a South and Central American boiling pot,
a spicy pot filled with temperament hot as chilies.
It has been simmering for centuries
and is the gourmet dish of the world.
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Neighbors in the Wood Shack
Scrawny chickens
cackle.
Mangy dogs bark at
Winston’s
and Maggie’s
raucousness.
Aunty grumbles
“de wutless
vagabond”
when Maggie rushes
over
and shows her
welts.
Winston follows,
wielding
a shack-shack
branch,
voice booming
“Ah go kill you.”
Uncle Ben cracks
his whip of words,
and soon tames
Winston’s anger.
“Is only dat a love
her,”
cries Winston
smothering Maggie
with kisses.
His arm
half-nelsons
Maggie’s neck
as he walks her
away.
Phyllis
Breaks Out of Prison
The outfit Phyllis wears is a birthday gift.
What did grandma say about her fat?
What did mama say about that?
It has become a straitjacket. Skin-tight,
it locks her flesh in an unwanted embrace.
What did grandma say about her fat?
What did mama say about that?
So what did grandma say about her fat?
What did mama say about that?
She feeds on fruit and veg,
drinks water by the liter.
She lives for Slim Fast and the South Beach
diet.
Yet her suit is not a better fit.
What did grandma say about her fat?
What did mama say about that?
Today, in despair, she slashes her garb,
stabs her navel, watches her suit redden.
What did grandma say about her fat?
What did mama say about that?
Just bones holding her, the unburdening begins.
What will grandma say about this?
Phyllis feels freedom coming.
What will mama say…
Rope
The tug-of-war,
the pulling of
knotted rope,
the stretching ends,
the fraying ends,
fingers red and burning
from holding on,
from waiting to see
who is first to cave.
Who will lose their grip?
Mother or daughter?
It is not a matter
of winning or losing.
It is the Mother who must let go,
reject the temptation to throw a lasso.
The falling daughter
will rise into her own.
She will carry her mother’s cautions
in memory like a suitcase
filled with clothes,
and take them out to wear,
one by one,
to see how well they fit.
Beneath them all—
her own long cord,
the secret binding,
the thickened string,
the rope she, too, will pull
when the tug-of-war comes.
Althea Romeo-Mark, an educator and writer, was born in Antigua, West
Indies, and grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.. She has lived and taught
in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Connecticut and Ohio, USA, Liberia (West
Africa), London, England, and Switzerland since 1991. Romeo-Mark writes
poetry, short stories, and personal essays. Althea Romeo Mark, who writes poetry, short stories and personal
essays, is the author of two full-length poetry collections, The
Nakedness of New and If Only the Dust Would Settle,
(English-German), and four chapbooks, On the Borders of
Belonging (2023), Beyond Dreams: The Ritual Dancer, Two Faces, Two
Phases, Palaver, and Shu-Shu Moko Jumbi: The Silent Dancing Spirit.
Her work has been inspired by major
transitions in her life as an immigrant. Her family moved from Antigua (then a
British colony) to the U.S. Virgin Islands. She then moved to Liberia in 1976,
where she taught at the University of Liberia until 1990, when her family fled
the Liberian Civil War (1990–2014). They had to register as refugees in London,
England. Finally, she and her husband and three children started over in
Switzerland, where her husband had studied medicine. The family's new beginning
was challenging because of the new culture and language. Switzerland is now
home.
Althea participated in
the Literary Evening at the 19th annual St. Martin Book Fair in June 2021. She
was one of thirty-five poets invited to the International Festival Poetry
Nights in Curtea de Argeș, Romania, in 2017. She participated in the 10th
anniversary conference of the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books in Antigua in
2015; was one of several guest poets at the Kistrech International Poetry
Festival in Kissi, Kenya, in 2014; participated in Tag der Poesie in Basel in
2013; and was one of a hundred guest poets invited to read at the XX
International Poetry Festival in Medellín, Colombia, in 2010.
One of the most original reviews I've ever read. Thanks for sending this lovely post!
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