Antiemetic for Homesickness

by Romalyn Ante

‘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.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Biography, Asian Literature

80 pages, Paperback

First published July 23, 2020

About the author

Romalyn Ante was born in 1989 in Lipa Batangas, Philippines. She was 16 years old when her mother – a nurse in the NHS – brought the family to the UK. Her debut pamphlet, Rice & Rain, won the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2018. She is the winner of the Poetry London Clore Prize 2018; joint-winner of the Manchester Poetry Prize 2017, and the recipient of the Platinum Poetry in Creative Future Literary Awards 2017. She currently lives in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, where she works as a registered nurse and psychotherapist.

Reviews

[Luisa Igloria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recent reviewers of these poems tend to focus on the tropes of immigrant writing that they perhaps find familiar: the turns toward nostalgia, the re-imagining of landscapes that the writer has left behind; and finally they look for signs of reassuring assimilation. What's refreshing in Romalyn Ante's voice is her refusal to make it simply "about that." Every image in this book captures the nuances of the in-between: never completely here, never completely there, nevertheless the poet is faithful in her precise witness of the worlds she makes and re-makes in her passage.

[Alice Hiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary debut which will be a game-changer for contemporary poems. A nurse of many years standing, Romalyn Ante makes her work from the landscapes and myths of the Philippines where she grew up, and the hospital wards where she and her mother and sister work. Incontinence pads and barrier creams sit alongside the wider questions of migration and the cost to those who come to the UK to care for the most vulnerable members of our communities, and are met on occasion with anger and racism. These are poems of hope and reclaiming which speak to and from places many find it more comfortable to look away from. They enact the humanity and identities of their Filipino speakers as they recall their patients, fill boxes to send home to their families, record tapes for their absent parents, and celebrate the landscape and culture of the Philippines stretching back to before colonisation. A book to buy, treasure and be inspired by.

[Jamica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had an emotional day reading Romalyn Ante's Antiemetic for homesickness. I did not know if I knew how to appreciate poetry before picking this up. I am glad I picked this book for the Wikathon prompt because her poems just spoke to me, and she made poetry make sense to me. She paints pictures of her life and memories of the town of Batangas in the Philippines so clearly in my head, as if I'm recalling her memories myself, truly letting me experience the meaning of tagalog words like Gunita. I can't quite explain it.

Not only is Romalyn Ante an award winning poet - she's also a NHS nurse, and in this time of the Pandemic in the UK, there has never been a more relevant read. If you truly want to appreciate the efforts of our NHS workforce, I suggest you pick this one up!

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love anything that deals with belonging and the question of what is home and the weird space you inhabit when you don't feel like you fit in anywhere anymore. The author, who was born in the Philippines and now lives in Wolverhampton, is also a nurse, like her mother, and so the poems also speak a lot about caring and not caring and goodness that ripped my heart out. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Absolutely brilliant.

[Jasmine]

I'm not going to give this a rating, but I did like it!

The reason I won't be giving this book a rating is that I'm not an Own Voices reviewer. I would have given this 3 stars based on my understanding and engagement ability with the collection, but I don't think a 3-star rating from a non-representative of Filipinx culture would be useful. I can't speak for the culture, nor can I say that the discussion of immigration from The Philippines to the UK resonated with me.

What I can say is that I got a very basic, surface-level understanding of the theme and it was really well-written. Emotion pours out onto every single page. My basic understanding comes from the fact that members of my family immigrated to the UK from India, Pakistan, and Kenya. But my understanding of my own cultures doesn't extend to an understanding of Filipinx culture.

So, I won't be giving it a rating. I'll be leaving that to the Filipinx reviewers (provided the publisher actually gives them a chance and markets the book well!) Own Voices reviews are so important and don't need to be drowned out by my very irrelevant and unnecessary 'I didn't really get it'-style review!

Content Warning: immigration, colourism

Thank you to Vintage, Netgalley, and Romalyn Ante for providing an e-copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

[Jo C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a blistering and luminous collection; I hope it gets taught for A level. It illuminates SO much about the here and now. So personal, but also political and absolutely beautiful. This is a heart-song for the workforce who are the backbone of the UK's NHS, but hail from overseas. With gentle humanity and uncompromising steel, these poems scrutinise the nature of home, migration, care and colonialism, alongside the self-sacrifice, hope and pain of a family life disrupted and displaced. Incredible.

[K. C. Amador · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book brought me melancholy and nostalgia. Every poem touched moments in my life living as an immigrant in the UK and growing up without my mother as she worked abroad for years. All beautifully written.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romalyn Ante is a poet but she is also an immigrant, a NHS nurse, homesick for her Filipino homeland. And her poetry collection honors all that and so much more. ⠀
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It honors all the careworkers from international backgrounds; all the hardworking, invisible women that the UK fails to recognize and yet so desperately depends upon. It honors her young self, missing her mother, and the family she is separated from now in her own adult life. ⠀

It honors those in the UK separated from their heritage and homeland. ⠀
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I could not pick out every favorite line to share here because the tender strength, the grief, the yearning envelopes you from off the page. Though Ante utilizes her own folklore and Tagaglog language to explore themes of belonging, colonialism, home, the migrant experience, and more, her poems feel extremely accessible and open to any who might relate, not just those of the Filipino background. ⠀
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It is for those who feel the split of home and here, past and present, future and present. Never quite belonging in one or the other because the migration story is one of belonging to multiple places and simultaneously to none at all. It is that sense of Other. ⠀
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Included in the work is 'A Boodle Fight of Words and Terminologies' as well as notes that the author included indicating references and other works her poems are in conversation with. The Boodle Fight collection allows Ante to not have to water her heritage down while still inviting the reader to join in and understand. This inclusion was invaluable and a brillaint move on the part of vintage books and Ante. ⠀
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In searching for the cure to homesickness, maybe the only way is to acknowledge and embrace that homesick feeling.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful journey this book took me on. I didn't come from the same neighbourhood in the Philippines as Romalyn and neither am I a nurse, but the words in each of these poems brought up familiar images, memories and feelings. This book reveals the inner life of migrants—what compels them to leave their homeland, and what they gain and lose from moving to a foreign land.

Each poem in this collection has been written in a form that fits the story it tells. For instance, the opening poem is written like the patient information leaflet that comes with medicine and talks about why a nurse might decide to leave her country, and what the consequences of this decision could be. You'll find a concrete poem in the shape of the pound sign, and a poem in the form of notes that accompany balikbayan boxes (care packages in big cartons sent by migrant Filipinos to relatives in the Philippines), as well as a tagay and an uyayi, two uniquely Filipino poetic forms. Interspersed throughout the book are short poems that give voice to the children left behind by their migrant worker parents.

Antiemetic for Homesickness reveals an impressive level of mastery and confidence—Romalyn's imagery is vivid; her lineation, impeccable; her tone, clear and precise. But of course, what makes this book really special is its big, gentle heart. Readers who are not familiar with the migrant experience don't have anything to fear when they read this book; they will find no accusations here. Reading this book will leave them not filled with guilt, but with an understanding of the dreams, yearning, hope and sacrifices of the often-overlooked migrant workers in their midst.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vibrant and deeply-felt, Antiemetic for Homesickness touches on subjects not seen often enough in modern poetry. Romalyn Ante writes about her experiences growing up in the Philippines, moving to the UK, and working as a nurse. Many children in the Philippines experience a wrenching loss when a parent becomes a healthcare worker in another country in order to provide for the family. Ante writes about this loneliness: the anger and sense of abandonment, and the longing for a parent to return home. Her poems capture aspects of myth and landscape from the Philippines, and describe food, home and traditional customs. In ‘The Making of a Smuggler’, she describes trying to bridge the space between home and another country, ‘Wherever we travel, we carry / the whole country with us – / our rice terraces are folded garments, / we have pillars of trees, a rainforest / on a hairbrush.’ But this is also a collection about the health service in Britain, and the difficulties of being a nurse in an over-burdened and chaotic system. Ante talks about the resentment of patients, the unsupportive system, and also moments of important human connection. I especially admired her longer poems, where a sequence gives her space to capture the overwhelming nature of the experience of a hospital, and all the different aspects of personality and culture that a nurse brings to their work. These subjects are rarely written about in modern British poetry, and it’s refreshing to read a collection that draws on these themes, but it’s also important to note that Ante is a very accomplished poet, with a nuanced grasp of her material, and a measured yet dynamic voice.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romalyn Ante is a nurse, psychotherapist and poet. She was born in the Philippines, and moved to the UK as a teenager to join her mother who was working as a nurse in the NHS. Antiemetic for Homesickness is on the longlist for the Dylan Thomas prize and the Jhalek prize, which prompted me to pick it up.

I find it hard to talk about poetry critically, as I think it's such a personal thing. This collection is multilayered and has real depth to it. There are themes here of belonging, nursing, family, heritage, longing, loneliness, homesickness, childhood. There are many poems about mothers/daughters. There are poems that have Tagalog within them, poems of Filipino myths and legends. Poems about migration, colonialism, language.

As with all poetry collections there were some I was drawn to more than others, some I will need to reread, some that made me think, some I needed to sit quietly with for a moment... A few I have returned to and read again and again.

I don't think this is a collection to breeze through or to consume in one gulp. I made the mistake of trying to do that, but once I slowed down and took my time I was able to hear Romalyn's voice, and listen to what she was telling me.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) I was drawn to this debut collection by the terrific title and cover, but also by the accolades it has won thus far: it was on the Dylan Thomas Prize longlist and is now on the Jhalak Prize shortlist. I hope we’ll see it on the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist, too. Ante grew up in the Philippines but at age 16 joined her mother in the UK, where she had moved years before to work as a nurse in the NHS. She has since followed in her mother’s footsteps as a nurse – indeed, overseas Filipinx workers (Jamaicans, too) are a mainstay of the NHS.

Ante remembers the years when her mother was absent but promised to send for the rest of the family soon: “You said all I needed to do was to sleep and before I knew it, / you’d be back. But I woke to the rice that needed rinsing, / my siblings’ school uniforms that needed ironing.” The medical profession as a family legacy and noble calling is a strong element of these poems, especially in “Invisible Women,” an ode to the “goddesses of caring and tending” who walk the halls of any hospital. Hard work is a matter of survival, and family – whether physically present or not – bolsters weary souls. A series of short, untitled poems are presented as tape recordings made for her mother.

Food is inextricably entwined with memory (reminding me of Nina Mingya Powles’s approach in Tiny Moons) and provides some of the standout metaphors, especially in “Patis” and “Ode to a Pot Noodle.” Ante uses a lot of alliteration and adapts various forms. I especially liked “Tagay!”, a traditional drinking song, and “Mateo,” printed in the shape of a pound sign. The nuanced look at the immigrant experience reminded me of Jenny Xie’s Eye Level. Displacement entails losses as well as benefits. The focus on the Filipinx experience made me think of America Is Not the Heart. My favorite single poem was “The Making of a Smuggler,” which opens “Wherever we travel, we carry / the whole country with us – // our rice terraces are folded garments, / we have pillars of trees, a rainforest // on a hairbrush.”

Favorite lines:

“Gone are the nights he steals / the moon with a mango picker / and swaps it for her pocket mirror”

“The yellow admission papers in my hands escaped / flustering at my face into a flight of orioles.”

“I am halved in order to be whole – / I rebuild by leaving / everything I love.”

[Liam Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romalyn Ante has been writing brilliant poetry for a while now, so I’ve been looking forward to this book for a while.
Her debut collection did not disappoint: it is assured and warm and witty and was a marvel to read. Romalyn has tapped into her experiences moving from the Philippines to the UK, as an NHS worker and as a human being, to produce a set of poems full of life and intelligence.
Highly recommended!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excuse me, I need to go buy a copy because I borrowed this from a library and it is frowned upon if you just don’t return it. One for me, one for a friend... poetry to keep.

[Smiley C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Untitled

I have no words. My voice is in my sword,
My pen, in this now familiar

Foreign tongue. A day will come
When you won't miss the country --

No, the city that your roots stem from
Like seeds blown into the sky --

Falling into cold streets slick with rain
Blonde and blue all around.

A pot noodle is the one thing that reminds you
Of better days at home, a scent of

chow mein contained in boiling water
in a rectangular box, opened at midnight

By a parent you have not seen in years
Each time with a little less hair

A little less sleep, a little less memory.
Let a smile bloom on your face

As you laugh and try to blend in
To the background, invisible.

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Review:
Immensely heartfelt, I couldn't stop reading it until realising I've finished the whole volume. Usually I just wrote a poem in response as a review, but this little gem is too rich to be concluded with a single amateur poem, so a review is necessary.
Being away from home for so long really makes you sentimental, and I find myself bursting into tears all of a sudden, as if I'm receiving a blow from the prose. That's true, tears start streaming down as I read:

'a homeless family...
they're hungry but complete,
ourselves full but fractured.'

This hits home hard. It reminded me of that time when I had a cold, coughing alone at the medical centre, wishing mum was there to pat my back and make me honey lemon water. It reminded me all those times I learned something new and unexpected, wanting to get home to dinner and share with my dad, only realising it was three in the morning at their side. It reminded me years ago when my sister left to pave the way, all the mornings I wake up without seeing her slippers by the ladder, her hair dangling over the upper bunk bed. Even now, my room feels so empty, two beds waiting to be filled. I was so lucky to see this book of poetry on shelf, as if waiting for me. It connects people. It reminded me everyone's going through something, and sometimes we do have to channel melancholy and homesickness into something tangible, not hide it somewhere. I haven't felt so released, or addressed the feeling of lacking something, a connection to home in so long, I'm glad this poetry volume gave me the chance and headspace to do so.
Sending lots of love whoever and wherever you are. Thank you, Romalyn. Thank you, dear reader.

[Mariethethird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry, when it’s good, speaks to your soul. This one took me a while because after reading the first two poems, I knew I wanted to savor it. I had to read it with my mom. I had to talk to her about them. I had to reflect.

The book so perfectly captures the culture and the reality of leaving your family behind to work overseas. “Notes inside a balikbayan box” being very familiar to me. “Half-empty” the most inventive way to describe OFW’s I’ve ever read. The title poem, a bittersweet journey. It comes complete with Tagalog and alibata and as a foreigner you’ll struggle to understand. But with an estimated 10 million ofw’s this book should have a big audience still. I encourage every OFW to read this one, and every child of theirs, every partner and family member or friend who wants to understand. This is so rich with nostalgia that in itself it becomes an antiemetic for homesickness. Loved it!

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Not all destinations are found / in the junctions of your palm lines. / Say better life, say better life. // And God knows I am repenting.” With poet Romalyn Ante’s debut collection Antiemetic for Homesickness, a new, iridescent voice joins the fray — a voice as concerned with generational past as with national, international and personal futures. A formally defiant, emotionally earnest ode to Filipino-British multiculturalism and citizenry, Ante wrestles with the tightrope tension between lineage + assimilation with enough deft skill to bring her reader along for her personal, deeply political journey. “Grief repeats like a genetic disease, / like a routine drug check. // A shovel tossing dirt / over a sack of bones.” In these moments and bleakly illuminated images, so starkly composed, Ante’s work really shines.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

In truth, some of the pieces could be tighter, the form sharper. But there are lines so moving I found myself crying unexpectedly- tears of unremembered trauma, of nostalgia, of grief and of joy. So rare has it been to hear the echoes of my own heart. I am delighted to be able to acknowledge shared emotions, the longing and the hopefulness of the immigrant experience, and the hazy memories of my own homeland.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Filipino myself, I can fully relate with the book contents. The writer has done a great job expressing each subject matter.

[Hillary Paulino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Saw myself in the words, and I feel like sometimes, that’s all you need in a book.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a frequent poetry reader as I find it difficult to gel with subject matter sometimes, but Antiemetic for Homesickness has such interesting, vivid and engaging storytelling that I ended up enjoying this so much more than I expected. These poems are so rich with the story of a life that you almost forget they‘re individual poems. Instead they read like many little narratives of one big story of assimilation, migration and belonging, made fuller by the journey into Filipino culture that for someone who isn't Filipino, felt like it skimmed the surface of something beautiful that I would be so interested to know more about. As the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee, reading this gave me a real longing for home and my family, and I felt an overwhelming sense of companionship in that feeling of other-worldliness that I think you can feel trying to maintain your cultural roots in a different country. However I think there are many elements that will resonate with everyone. This is a particularly beautiful and pressing read, for its story of people calling a place home and the heritage they take with them wherever they go. With everything that has happened in 2020 it makes your heart ache for those who have worked so hard in healthcare positions and the variety of stories they must have that go untold. Thank you to Vintage Books for providing me with a copy of this to read, I loved it!

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I often feel that poetry isn’t for me. But I always want to try. While I ‘got’ occasional parts of this collection, I mainly didn’t. Which is definitely a me not meshing with poetry thing

[Jane Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book! This book's amazing not only for its socially-engaged theme but also for its aesthetics.

Antiemetic for Homesickness overflows with unforgettable images and sensory details that I felt transported by each poem. This is a well crafted and moving book about loss and healing. The haunting center poem '[ ]' gives you an idea of the poet's skills.

The first part deals with how labour migration affects a person's relationship to her family and home, whilst the much latter half seems to have shifted to the lone reflections of a woman/migrant nurse (who could have been Ante, her mum or anyone else). The poet mainly uses the POV "I" to allow her characters to speak. This is what I find particularly impressive as the voice of the speaker in each poem remains uniquely palpable, so varied.

The book also deals evocatively with language and time, and the poems are held together by a beautiful 'Tape Recordings for Mama' sequence. Her lyricism is graceful but what I love more is the poet's use of enjambment which is synonymous to the lives of dislocated speakers.

'They cannot recall the explosion /
of wings...' (At the Other End of the Bridge)

'He was rewarded with a pearl as heavy as an infant. Resembling the shape of a prophet's / turban, it was then renamed the Pearl of Allah.' (Eponym)

In Antiemetic for Homesickness, every poem is a conceit. In 'The Wait', the speaker tries to understand the West's diminution of marriage 'It's just a piece / of paper. What more could we want?' as the speaker brings sustenance through British and Filipino food, 'fish and chips' and 'chicken intestines'. In the end, the poem subtly conveys the speaker's found patience through time, but also her acceptance of the relationship as it is:
'There is a plaque that reads:
Don't think about the wait
what's important is
it will come.'

[Natalie Linh Bolderston · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary collection that explores not only the pain of separation but also the joy of shared memories, intergenerational bonds and familial ritual. Antiemetic for Homesickness is full of sparkling images ('we sit on cracked, upturned pots / amongst the haematoma of flowers' - from 'Tagay!') and ingenious uses of form and page aesthetics (see 'Half Empty', 'Names', 'Mateo', '[ ]', 'Repairing English', 'Mastering English' and others). It's a book I've been waiting for my whole life.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems that captures the longing of migration, of working in a different land, of nursing, and the swirling mix of all of these themes combined.

Drawn from her experience as a nurse from the Philippines working in the UK, this sprinkles different form, alongside Tagalog phrases and words.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very impressive collection. Some of the images here - like the drop of liquid at the end of a syringe that turns into a lake - really stay with you. Incredible that a working nurse can find the time to do this. Moving, tender and funny too. She deserves to do really well.

[Mervin Silva-Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poems is exceptional, well written, and emotionally powerful! I’m endlessly impressed. Every reader will definitely understand and feel the emotional difficulty that every migrant worker has to deal with in order to provide a better future for his family.

[Pratyusha · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautiful books I’ve read this year - thank you 🌹

[dnote · Rating 5 out of 5]

*edit* Re-read for the Sealey Challenge. Magnificent.

Why is this not on the Forward debut list? Prefer this than any of the book on that list.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
Beautiful, beautiful sadness and hope. The questions we have bring left behind; the longing for someone and somewhere gone to you. The ways to bring it back, like magic, for a time only.