Poems published in Poui: Cavehill Journal of Contemporary Creative Writing 12/2023
My poems below (after the foreword) are published under section III: TRAVEL and TIME and include an introductory poem by Megan Elmendorf.
FOREWORD After an unexpected hiatus, POUi returns. This issue is figuratively and in a real sense, all about time. A lot has happened in the period between this issue and the last one: political, environmental, cultural changes that have created, in some cases, significant paradigm shifts in how we work, communicate, and create. Does this mean that the content of this issue shows the passage of time? Yes, very much so, as an essential backdrop to what helps us confront human existence as finite, dynamic, and valuable.
The poems and stories in this issue highlight how small but nonetheless crucial moments coexist alongside, and within, grander movements of time. It is those moments, in their complexity, sometimes out of startling simplicity, that are deftly captured in these pages. The theme of time and the changes it brings as well as those it witnesses is the thread that loosely draws together the work found here. From the transformations wrought by intimate relationships to the pursuit of closely held desires, time directly or indirectly has a role whether as an unavoidable constant or a surprising intervention. The works are grouped into further sections – each predictably partnered with time – but that is where the predictably ends. Any further connections, overlaps and delightfully unexpected insights, we leave the works to yield to each reader. Welcome to those for whom this will be a new encounter, welcome back to those who have patiently waited. This issue is special not only because it is the quiet resumption of the journal, but it is also our twentieth publication. We therefore celebrate the fulfilment of this desire to provide a platform, from within the Caribbean, for creative writing from 1999 to 2018 and look forward to its future milestones. Speaking for the editorial board, we are happy to finally bring you POUi XX – it’s about time we did. From the editor: Nicola Hunte
Here is the link: https://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/LLL/poui/home.aspx
My Poems:
Bargain Hunt
The place isn’t fancy,
but bargains are great.
It’s members only,
a decadent man’s
Sotheby.
Objects of desire: some second-hand,
tried out once or twice in a weak moment,
discarded like green, sour mangoes,
or mangoes, bruised, overripe.
They come from every continent.
The bidders are mostly men
and a few hard-faced women
as tough-knuckled as their counterparts.
They prod and poke
as though in a market
testing the freshness of fruit.
The cargo, women
wearing subdued faces, startled eyes;
their clothes rumpled
from drawn-out journeys in containers
and rides in stuffy long-haul trucks.
None will have a say in their destination.
There are women here by chance;
and women, who in seeking freedom,
found their hell; women pawned off
to pay a debt. All enslaved by greed and lust.
They, losing dignity, descending
down the ladder of the inhumane.
The bidding begins after inspection
of teeth, bone structure, height,
weight and projected potential
for turning a profit.
There are long-necked Nubians,
leggy blonds, the doe-eyed brown-haired,
some barely budding breasts—
someone for every customer’s taste.
The flawed are kept as servants,
prisoners in private homes,
workers in smoky whore houses and
walkers on street corners
in Red Light Districts.
© Althea Romeo-Mark
Pockets Empty,
Head Full of Stories
Old Man Ronald used to go away
on seasonal journeys
to fulfill his dream
of streets paved with gold.
He dreamed of pockets filled with greenbacks
and saving money for a Cadillac.
The streets not so golden,
he brought back stories
about wearing two pairs of trousers
two sweaters to warm his bones
while harvesting cranberries
and cherries in Wisconsin
and stripping down to
his brown, muscled frame
to pick oranges in Florida’s fields
that spread way beyond his eyes’ reach.
But Old Man Ronald is remembered
for people lining up on his front stoop.
His view-master was the village theater,
where people to pay to watch pictures of places
he claimed had been to—the Empire State building,
the White House, the Grand Canyon….
The picking season became history,
became part of our memory,
the Cadillac remained his dream,
and the view-master a past sensation.
Later, like his neighbors,
Old Man Ronald paid a dollar
to watch black and white movies on TV
in someone else’s house,
paid a dollar to live
in other people’s dreams.
.
© Althea Romeo-Mark
Force Ripe
(from Island Stories)
We
always said, Aunty Nelly
was force
ripe*,
fell
off the family tree too soon,
went
her own way,
disappeared
out of our sight,
off the
island’s horizon,
until
her return
from Santo Domingo.
Aunty
Nelly reappeared,
like a
rare moon one night,
looking
as thin as a broomstick
from
years of sugar-cane harvests.
Following
her— a string of children,
she had
dropped
like
mangoes after storms.
We look
past her failings,
her
fallen, bruised life,
happy she’s still living,
because
she’ one of us.
We
welcomed back
our
wayward one
who had
left because
village life stifling.
She
knew then she was wise
beyond
her teenage years,
was
ready to go her own way,
and had
shouted as she left,
me na one for classroom an’ ting,
me no need de book dem,
me go follow me heart, see weh it go.
And we,
seeing where
her
heart went
restrained
our tongues.
©
Althea Romeo-Mark
Althea Romeo Mark is
the winner of the Vincent Cooper Literary Prize. The
Vincent Cooper Literary Prize to a
Caribbean author for exemplary writing in a Caribbean Nation Language (a term
used by celebrated post-colonial Caribbean author Kamau Brathwaite to describe
vernacular language born in the Caribbean). The 2023 recipient is a
prize-winning poet and fiction writer, educator Althea Romeo Mark
for her short story,” Saving Papa Rojas from the Deathbed Flirt.”
Romeo-Mark is an Antiguan-born educator and internationally published
writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and
taught in the Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia, England, and Switzerland since
1991. She writes short stories and personal essays in addition to poetry. She has been published in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Antigua, and Barbuda,
The Bahamas, Barbados, the USA, England, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Colombia,
India, the U.K., Kenya, Liberia, Romania, and Switzerland. Her last poetry
collection, The Nakedness of New, was published in 2018.
Althea was nominated for
the Eric Hoffer Book Award in 2024 It is one of the most prestigious contests
in poetry. As Kelsay Books publishers stated,” We are happy
to submit your book representing Kelsay Books poetry collections published in
2023. https://www.hofferaward.com/
wonderful poems, Althea.
ReplyDeleteThe first one is so painful, but
very well told. Thank you
These are wonderful poems,
ReplyDeleteAlthea. So visual. Especially the first one. Hard, but well told. Thank you