Marie-Ange Jolicoeur (1947-1976) died at the age of 29 in Lille, France, having already authored four volumes of poetry, Guitare de vers (1967), Violon d’espoir (1970), Oiseaux de mémoire (1972), and Transparence en bleu d’oubli (published posthumously in 1979). According to Saint-John Kauss in La poésie féminine haïtienne, “She was, to the best of our knowledge, after Queen Anacaona, the second ‘cursed’ poetess in Haitian literary history.”
from the article:
Isle of Mine
With words that sing With words that weep With this long dismal wailing At the world’s edge of days And this penumbra Big as the hills With the muffled tam-tam Of our plains, before dawn With these words of hope And those of agony
I see you again, isle of mine.
With words that laugh And the blood spilt With the restless wind psalm-singing secrets With the dead wave And the moon’s mourning With the vast field of a singing assembly¹ of stars Sweeping away the misfortune of former time lost.
I see you again, isle of mine.
With your hot sand And the rumors of the night With the widowed hours of the _tic-tac of the pendulums with your name more beautiful than a pearl of sun resting upon the archipelago There, beneath sky’s blue
I see you again, isle of mine. With your hot sand With your dead wave With the widowed hours of the tic-tac of pendulums.
¹ Cumbite: An informal cooperative group of Haitians helping a neighbor get work done to the accompaniment of drumming and singing.