Poems
Ever since I was a kid I loved rhyming. I would play a game where we had to express ourselves solely through rhymes. The one who got stuck would lose.
As I got older I started to enjoy describing concepts and words through, as I called it back then, more elaborate emotion. It wasn’t until my exam class in high school that I learned what metaphors were.
I kept a little journal full of love poems dedicated to those I admired (not so) silently, or poems of friendship for my friends.
I kept those journals and when they started turning yellow I typed the ones I liked. I was often encouraged to publish them by the people who read some of these poems.
It is said that the older you get the more life experience you have, which helps us grow and ripen emotionally. My experience is that my inspiration has gone through the same process. I appreciated the positive feedback about my early poetry but it wasn’t until 2002 that I was ready to publish my work. I currently have two poetry bundles published, and a third one on its way.
Curashi
In 2002 I published my first poetry bundle titled 'Curashi" which means “Courage" in Papiamento. Illustrations in this bundle were done by two of my daughters and are associations they got by reading the poems.
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An excerpt from 'Nostalgia infantil' or 'Youthful Nostalgia', a poem I wrote in memory of my mom after her passing:
Ki dushi tabata
Habri wowo mainta
prome cu salid'i solo
topa...
e cara di soño
e yapon machica
e cabei plama
How lovely it was
Waking up in the morning
before sunrise
to see...
that sleepy face
that wrinkled nightgown
that messy head of hair
Sin Wak Patras
After Curashi I published Sin Wak Patras (No Looking Back). In this bundle, poems reflect turbulent times in my life. I channeled these periods, got them out of my system and moved on without looking back.
