AUTHOR ROSALIENE BACCHUS


Reaching minds and hearts through storytelling



POEM "TO ENTER MY MOTHER'S HOUSE" BY TRINIDADIAN POET DANIELLE BOODOO-FORTUNÉ



DANIELLE BOODOO-FORTUNÉ, a poet and artist, was born in 1986 in the twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Literatures in English from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus, where she later completed a Creative Writing Course in Poetry, taught by Casa de las Américas prize-winner Jennifer Rahim.


Her poetry has appeared in several local and international journals such as Poetry Magazine, Poetry London, The Rialto, the Prairie Schooner, The Asian American Literary Review, Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, the Caribbean Writer, Small Axe Literary Salon, Poui: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing, and Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal.


Her poetry has also been featured in anthologies such as Coming Up Hot: Eight New Poets from the Caribbean (2015), Thicker than Water (2019), both published by Peekash Press, and the award-winning bilingual anthology The Sea Has No Ornament, published by Peepal Tree Press in 2020.

Boodoo-Fortuné’s awards include:

• The Charlotte and Isidor Paeiwonsky Prize by The Caribbean Writer (2009)

• Small Axe Poetry Prize (2012)

• Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers’ Poetry Prize (2015)

• Wasafiri New Writing Prize (2016) and

• OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry (2019)

Boodoo-Fortuné’s nominations include:

• Pushcart Prize (2010)

• Best New Poets (2013)

• Wasafiri New Writing Prize (2013) and

• Montreal Poetry Prize (2013, 2017 & 2020)


She lives in Sangre Grande, Trinidad, with her husband and two young sons.

Visit the poet's official website at www.daniellebooodoofortune.com/

Photo Credit: Trinidad & Tobago Newsday Newspapers


TO ENTER MY MOTHER'S HOUSE BY DANIELLE BOODOO-FORTUNÉ



The Heron god created daughter

on the last day. Not knowing

what to do with the longing

left over from creation, he poured it

into her open mouth, still warm

and echoing with earth.


To enter my mother's house

I must walk backwards with

smoke in my mouth.


To pass through the keyhole

I must become a spout

of water, a single hair

from an ocelot's back.


I must go back thirty years

to recreate myself, carve

my face on the unburnt tip

of a match, strike my teeth

thrice against her name.


The daughter is always hungry,

walking backwards through locked

doors, breaking her teeth on

teacups and unasked questions.








TO ENTER MY MOTHER'S HOUSE continued



In my mother's house,

blue as bruise and dry

as tinder, there are rooms

I am too tall to enter.


I must make myself small

and light as a bee, suspend

myself among the dust motes

and droplets, hum and fidget

among the noiseless things.

I must not disturb the dishes

in the sink, tread softly round

the sunken bed.


If the daughter, milk-soft

and heavy with egg,

does not re-enter the house

of her mother, she will give birth

to a siege of night herons.

They will be born ravenous,

eat the heart from her body

before they can walk.


To re-enter my mother's house

I must walk backwards cloaked

in purple, the colour of hurt.


I must never ask about my birth.


Source: Doe Songs, poetry collection by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, published by Peepal Tree Press Ltd., UK, 2018, pp. 7-8.