Christine Roseeta Walker

Biography

I am a Caribbean poet living in Cheshire. My poetry has been published in various magazines across England and Ireland, and I am also published in the anthology New Poetries VIII (Carcanet, 2021). My work was featured on RTÉ Radio1-The Poetry Programme in 2021, and my debut collection, Coco Island, is scheduled for release in April 2024 by Carcanet. Additionally, I hold a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester and a First-Class (Hons) degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Salford. What is my poetry about? My poetry is an exploration of place, human nature, fading traditions, folklore, and magical realism in the context of Jamaica, WI. Through recollection of memory and the use of tale-telling, my work seeks to shed light on a minute part of the oratory culture of Jamaica. The poems are narrative in verse, observational and acute in depicting human nature, voodooism, and the interrelation between the natural world and the supernatural.

The Tadpoles’ Pond

With a quart bottle of oil, a rolled tissue for a wick, you walk through the field, shading the flame from the breeze. You can hear the preacher’s voice over the hill, calling all sinners to come to the pond where the tadpoles swim. From the top of the hill, you see a long white tent, sparkling and hear the preacher singing: all wrong doers come, come on down to the pond where the tadpoles swim and forsake the old you, your old ways, till your burdens grow light. You blow out the lesser lamp and run to the bigger glow, till you reach the tent. Sinners kneeling on their knees. The preacher rests his hand on your pendent head and tells you to be free of all evil. Free your mind and heart from all principalities. You wait at the side and watch the saints speaking in new tongues, jerking and ticking. One comes to you carrying a tadpole in a clear jar. She whispers, what would you gain if Christ comes tonight and you are here left behind? She gives you the jar and tells you to follow the sinners, down into the pond. But you are scared now holding your jar, watching your tadpole swim, observing the sinners getting in the pond and wading up to their waist. They freed their tadpoles, their tails fanning next to legs kicking back into the past. They are creating a new them. But you know that you could never return to that life to be born again. You turn to leave as the new saints crawl from the lake into a new life, afraid to expose the sin festering on your brown legs. You watch to see their changed forms knowing your last way to life is through these waters. - Christine Roseeta Walker.

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