By Rene Depestre. The Poet, The Final Degree of Exile, Consciences in Bloom: three offerings from the poetry collection In a State of Poetry (En Etat de Poesie, Les Editeurs Francais Reunis, Paris, 1980). (French, with English | French bio)
Continue reading →“Le baiser d’une mère” | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Before I could speak or even breathe, my mother, with a broad smile, read this poem to me. I copy it here from a version she wrote from memory. Based on the style, some of the phrases, and her fondness for Oswald Durand, I think it is his. (French | English)
Continue reading →By Pete Seeger | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Pete Seeger’s song, One Blue Sky (My Rainbow Race), is a message of love that has become an anthem for those who campaign for climate action and other important issues.
Continue reading →By Gilbert & Sullivan, Sung by Michael Rayner | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Utopia, Limited is a prescient operetta from 1893 that warned of the dangers of corporatism.
Continue reading →By Frederico Garcia Lorca, Casa Poema, Kempis, Everything2 | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Frederico García Lorca, one of the greatest poets and playwrights in the Spanish language, became Franco’s most famous victim at the start of the Spanish Civil War. Lorca’s remains might be in one of the unmarked graves that Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered exhumed as part of his probe into Spain’s fascist era. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →Etta James, You Tube (courtesy of Yvonne Koendeerman and Caela Harlot) | Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Etta could dig into a 12-bar blues as well as she could stretch the phrases of a jazz ballad. Thank you, Etta. So glad you were here. You are missed.
Continue reading →By Martin Luther King Jr, In: Why We Can’t Wait (Harper & Row, N.Y., 1963) | Charles Moore, Photos | Estate of Martin Luther King Jr, Statement by Clergymen | Assembled by Haiti Chery. “Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.” – MLK
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Long before the word sustainable became fashionable, before Henry David Thoreau noted that “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone,” there was Haiti.
Continue reading →“Vow before me to live free and independent, and to prefer death to anything that will try to place you back in chains. Swear, finally, to pursue forever the traitors and enemies of your independence.” – Jean-Jacques Dessalines, January 1, 1804. In the present day: this means anyone who collaborates with foreign occupiers or even tolerates the presence of foreign soldiers on Haitian soil.
Continue reading →By Oswald Durand, two poems from the collection “Rires et Pleurs” (1896): Le chanteur des rues; Dédicace à M. Demesvar-Delorme, à Paris. Oswald Durand is one of Haiti’s most beloved poets. (English | French bio.)
Continue reading →Leopold Senghor was a Senegalese poet and statesman who served as his country’s first president from 1960 to 1980. (English | French | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Anthony Phelps. “I ask myself, oh my country, what hand has drawn on the register of nations a little star by your name.” – Anthony Phelps. One of Haiti’s most important writers, with poetry and novels translated in tens of languages. (French)
Continue reading →By Lionel Trouillot | Translated by Linda Coverdale. The Grand Prix du Roman Métis was awarded last week to Haitian poet and novelist Lyonel Trouillot for his novel La Belle Amour Humaine, published by Actes Sud (2011). (English | French)
Continue reading →By Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1990), publishers Gollancz (UK), Workman (US) | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Excerpt from Good Omens: a prescient and hilarious book about the coming end times. This excerpt describes being pulled over by an extraterrestrial.
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