Antiemetic for Homesickness

Ante's poems are like embers, pared back to a slow-burning emotional core whose intensity she sustains elegantly throughout the collection -- Stephanie Sy-Quia * Times Literary Supplement * What might it mean to survive the incandescent distances between here and all we've ever left behind-the languages, the myths, the keepsakes and names? How can we return to lost things and those who love us, relearn what draws away from memory? Romalyn Ante traces paths back through such questions with the grace of lancets, illuminating scars and landscapes, celebrating the invisible...goddesses of caring and tending in this brilliant collection. It is something of miracle to experience a debut that charts our dislocated world with such incisive generosity. I am beyond grateful for these poems-each one pulsing with the rhythm of a shockable heart. -- R.A. Villanueva Romalyn Ante is a poet to fall in love with. A flower of both the Philippines and the Black Country, her vivid, sensual poems weave a fascinating and moving story of migration and loss, caring and tenderness -- Liz Berry A poetry of rapturous images and riveting conscience -- Tracy K. Smith Captivating...playful...moving, witty and agile...These poems have a tended quality, as though Ante's kindness as a nurse extended to them. She is an unforced poet with a lightness of touch and fortitude, not neglecting to see her situation within a wider cultural and historical context -- Kate Kelloway * Observer *Poetry Book of the Month* *