#BinibiniBiyernes: Romalyn Ante and "Antiemetic for Homesickness"

‘A day will come when you won’t miss the country na nagluwal sa ‘yo.’

– ‘Antiemetic for Homesickness’

The poems in Romalyn Ante’s luminous debut build a bridge between two worlds: journeying from the country ‘na nagluwal sa ‘yo’ – that gave birth to you – to a new life in the United Kingdom.

Steeped in the richness of Filipino folklore, and studded with Tagalog, these poems speak of the ache of assimilation and the complexities of belonging, telling the stories of generations of migrants who find exile through employment – through the voices of the mothers who leave and the children who are left behind. With dazzling formal dexterity and emotional resonance, this expansive debut offers a unique perspective on family, colonialism, homeland, and heritage: from the countries, we carry with us, to the places we call home.

Romalyn Ante was born in 1989 during her hometown's fiesta of San Sebastian. She grew up and lived in the Philippines until she migrated to the UK when she was 16 years old. She is a Wolverhampton-based poet and co-founding editor of harana poetry. She is the first East-Asian to win the Poetry London Clore Prize (2018) and the Manchester Poetry Prize (2017). She also won the Creative Future Literary Award 2017. Her debut pamphlet, Rice & Rain (V. Press), received the 2018 Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet. Apart from being a writer, she also works as a specialist nurse practitioner.  Do you think femininity is changing?

Femininity is ever-changing and ever-developing because human behaviours, attributes, and roles are changing too. In Antiemetic for Homesickness, the 'mother' is the one who provides financial and economic security to the family by leaving to work abroad a nurse. Women's strength and power are highlighted throughout the book, and their role in our society both as mothers and 'bread-winners'. This is true to our present society - more and more mothers become the foundation of a family, whilst the fathers also share 'motherly' characteristics like taking care of children and nurturing them. I think this is the beauty of femininity. It is always growing.

What’s it like sharing Filipino culture to a foreign country?

Labour migrants have been seen as people who "take away" the native's jobs, or who go to a country to "plunder" of "steal" their resources, or to be a drag. What the richer countries don't realise is that there is a price that labour migrants and their family pay in pursuit of a better chance in life. Antiemetic for Homesickness deals with the interstices between home and leaving, pain and healing, and attempts to illustrate the dignity beyond a migrant's work, their value as their own unique individual. I want this work to shed light on nurses and labour migrants as a whole, and I am sure an attentive reader will understand the true core of the book.

Antiemetic for Homesickness is available to pre-order here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1117727/antiemetic-for-homesickness/9781784743000.html