Poetry by Jean D'Amérique

Translated from the Haitian Creole by Nathan H. Dize

Definitions

(Reginald) Boulòs: A powerful businessman, doctor, and political leader who opened a large supermarket chain in Haiti.

Originally published in Words Without Borders in August 2023.

for Poem for Children with Trouble Sleeping
https://wwb-campus.org/literature/poem-for-children-with-trouble-sleeping

Jean D'Amérique

Born in Haiti in 1994, Jean D’Amérique is a multi-awarded poet, playwright, rapper, and novelist. The author of several plays and collections of poetry, he has received the Prix de Poésie de la Vocation for No Way in the Skin without This Bloody Embrace (Cheyne, 2017/Ugly Duckling Presse, 2022) and the Prix Montluc Résistance et Liberté for his first novel, A Sun to Be Sewn (Actes Sud, 2021/Other Press, 2023).

image:

Nathan H. Dize (translator)

Nathan H. Dize is a translator of Haitian and Francophone Caribbean literature. His translations include the novels The Immortals and The Emperor by Makenzy Orcel, I Am Alive by Kettly Mars, Duels by Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey, and Antoine of Gommiers by Lyonel Trouillot. He has translated poetry and short prose from French and Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) by Jean D’Amérique, James Noël, and Évelyne Trouillot. He is also a founding member of the Kwazman Vwa collective and the co-editor of the Global Black Writers in Translation Series at Vanderbilt University Press.

Powèm pou timoun ki mal pou dòmi

dodo
dodo ti pitit
pa batkò w
si kè w pa bat se Leta ki prete l
pou fè motè l mache

si venn ou koupe
pa fè gwosan
Leta se enjenyè
li bezwen san
pou koule beton
lanmò

dodo
dodo ti pitit
pa kraze kò w
yo peye lapolis pou sa
ou mèt dodo
pa fatige w
demen Boulòs ap ouvè yon lòt makèt
si m gen nan bòlèt
m ap achte yon rèv pou ou

dodo
dodo ti pitit
dodo ti pitit
lè manman ape vini
l ap pote peyi pou ou

Links available online only

Meet Jean D’Amérique

Author Jean D'Amérique. Courtesy of Edouard Caupeil.

“I started to write because I was, and am, angry with the world we live in. So I think I write in the hope of transforming it.”

Find out how rap music inspired Jean D’Amérique to become a poet, and learn about the poetry festival he created for aspiring poets in Port-au-Prince, in his interview with the Institut Français.

Why does violence play a prominent role in D’Amérique’s poetry? Read the poet’s powerful thoughts on “What it Means to Be Haitian Now” after the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse (also translated by Nathan H. Dize).

Meet Translator Nathan H. Dize

What’s it like to translate literature that deals with disaster and trauma? Read Nathan H. Dize’s answer in an interview with Imaginaries: “I hoped [my translations] could help others cope, heal, and maybe comprehend the moments these poets capture.” (Toward the end of the interview, Dize discusses the essay by Jean D’Amérique that’s linked above.)

Hear the Original

Listen to author Jean D'Amérique read the poem in the original Haitian Creole.

You can also watch D'Amérique recite the poem in a performance for the Maison de la Poésie.

A Scholar's Notes

Read what Évelyne Trouillot (translated by Paul Curtis Daw) says about Creole writing in the Caribbean introduction:

In each of these islands, in various ways and at differing momentums, writers and poets took the language that had been imposed on them and shaped and molded it to suit their own needs. Creole, a language born mainly from the confluence of African and European languages, has not developed at the same pace and with the same consistency throughout the region. Its literary use, official recognition, and internal status vary from island to island. Particularly in Haiti, the profusion of poems and plays in Creole reflect its social and literary evolution despite the persistence of prejudice. . . . Whether it is in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Guadeloupe, or the islands off the Colombian coast, to name only a few places, Creole-language writing reflects a desire to control the language of the colonizer, a recovery springing from a search for identity and self-affirmation.

Visit Haiti “Beyond the Headlines”

For a visual look at everyday life in Haiti, scroll through the 2020 photo essay “Haiti Beyond the Headlines.”

Journalist Junior St. Vil comments:

When I look at images in the press, or in advertising for NGOs, I see . . . what sells: disaster, tragedy, suffering, and the foreign saviors who will help us become heroes one day. Except that the story of our heroism lies in our everyday struggles, in our strength of spirit and resilience, in our daily smiles, jokes, in empathy or love.

What else do people outside of Haiti fail to understand about it? Haitian Canadian-American author Myriam J. A. Chancy offers a critical look at often-problematic depictions of Haiti in her essay for NPR:

I'm surprised to hear my American acquaintances referencing the 8/14 earthquake—and the hurricane that struck a few days later—as something banal, as if to say that, this being Haiti, we can expect little more than catastrophe and chaos. Such pronouncements are couched in an "othering" of Haitians.

For knowledgeable writing about recent years in Haiti, explore “Haiti Beyond Crisis,” a series of essays published in English, Creole, and French from the Society for Cultural Anthropology. (Note: this resource is best suited to students at a high school or college reading level.)

Hear a Creole Lullaby

Listen to “Dodo Ti Pitit Manman,” a popular Creole lullaby. You might notice some similarities between this lullaby and D’Amérique’s poem.

Learn Some Haitian Creole

Want to try speaking this "beautifully unique" language?

Learn the history of Haitian Creole and learn some vocabulary and grammar in “Haitian Creole–The World’s Most Widely Spoken Creole Language”
Hear what Haitian speakers have to say about the language in the PBS documentary: “Haitian Voices: Haitian Creole”
Looking for a challenge? Advanced high school and college students can watch a short video of philosopher Paulo Freire: “On Language and Power”

While French is still frequently used in Haitian journalism, schools, businesses, and government, there have been efforts to recognize Haitian Creole in more areas of Haitian society. Take a look at the 2011 Charter on Language Policy and Language Rights in the Creole-Speaking Caribbean. Article 3 on page 6 sums up the “inalienable personal rights” of Creole speakers.

Haiti after the Earthquakes

In 2010, a devastating earthquake rocked Haiti, killing more than 250,000 people and causing massive destruction.

“More than a decade later, the country still suffers from its aftershocks.” Read what Haitian author Kettly Mars had to say about the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath twelve years later, in an interview with translator Nathan H. Dize for Words Without Borders.

Then, see photographer Ivanoh Demers’s photographs, and read his reflections on the earthquake a decade later, on Radio-Canada.

What happened to the “millions of aid dollars [that] flooded the country" that Mars mentioned in her interview? Find out in the documentary Fatal Assistance by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck.

In 2021, Haiti experienced yet another major earthquake just one month after the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse.

What’s the situation like in Haiti today? Listen to “What’s Happening in Haiti?,” a report from NPR’s 1A on the issues Haiti is currently facing.

"I have hope, I say, because I grew up with elders, both in Haiti and here in the US, who often told us, 'Depi gen souf gen espwa'—as long as there’s breath, there’s hope." Read author Edwidge Danticat's hopes for Haiti in the New Yorker essay "The Haiti That Still Dreams."

For current news from Haiti, visit the English, French, and Creole-language Haitian news sites Ayibo Post and the Haitian Times.

Or, read updates from Woy Magazine, which publishes a newsletter with political and cultural explanations from Haiti every two weeks.

Police Brutality in Haiti and Beyond

By Alex Proimos, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Like many other parts of the world, Haiti has a long history of police violence. In 1959, dictator François Duvalier (or “Papa Doc”) created a secret police force commonly known as the “Tonton Macoutes” to terrorize and silence his political opponents. Read a brief description of the Tonton Macoutes (and learn about the folkloric origins of their name) from Brown University.

In recent years, human rights groups have accused Haitian police officers of using excessive force. Find out more in a Human Rights Watch report from 2021, when this poem was first published. In 2023, the United Nations voted to send a multinational police force led by Kenya to fight gang violence in Haiti; the Kenyan police force has its own record of brutality, according to Vox.

Finally, learn more about police violence in the US in the New York Times' archive on police brutality.

Background on Haiti

New to learning about Haiti? Check out a profile and timeline of the country’s history from the BBC.

Then, learn about Haiti’s history as the “first nation to permanently ban slavery” in the Washington Post.

After the Haitian Revolution, France forced Haiti to pay millions of francs in reparations. Learn more about the “greatest heist in history,” and how it affects Haiti’s current financial situation, on NPR.

The US did something similar in the 20th century; read an article about the United States’ occupation of Haiti from 1915–1934 in the Washington Post.

Looking for a challenge? Advanced students can read “The King of Haiti’s Dream,” an essay about the political aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, in Aeon. Or, watch a video about Henry Cristophe by the same author from TED-Ed.

Links available online only

More from Jean D’Amérique

Jean D’Amérique is also a rapper in Haitian Creole and French. Listen to his song “Ou Gen Pou Leve” (“you have to get up”).

D’Amérique’s latest album, “Mélancolie Gang,” is on his YouTube channel.

Next, read more poetry from D’Amérique, translated from French by Conor Bracken (both sites include the poems in the original French):

“Homeland” (“Pays Mien”) and other poems in Anomaly
“‘notes for a song’ and Other Poems,” in The Offing

Or, read No Way in the Skin without This Bloody Embrace, D’Amérique’s most recent poetry collection to be translated into English (by Conor Bracken).

“I think poetry saved my life—literally—because I grew up in a neighborhood where it was easier to find a gun than a book.” Listen to Jean D’Amérique discuss his novel A Sun to Be Sewn (translated by Thierry Kehou) on NPR.

More from Translator Nathan H. Dize

"Your grandmother died of stage four lung cancer nearly a year ago, and now here you are, reading a passage you will have to translate about a mother dying of a respiratory disease. You can hardly make it through a paragraph." Read Nathan H. Dize's essay on when translation work hits close to home on Words Without Borders.

Or, read Dize’s translation from French of another Haitian poem that deals with police violence: “Black Prayer,” a tribute to George Floyd by James Noël.

Finally, check out other Haitian novels translated by Dize:

An excerpt from I Am Alive, by Kettly Mars, which follows a wealthy Haitian family after the 2010 earthquake (buy the novel on Bookshop)
Antoine of Gommiers, a magical realist novel about a mythical figure by WWB Campus author Lyonel Trouillot
The Immortals, by Makenzy Orcel, about the lives of sex workers in post-earthquake Port-au-Prince

More Haitian Poetry

Haitian artist Frankétienne next to one of his paintings. By Manuelcasanovafernandez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Interested in Haitian poetry? Meet Frankétienne, one of Jean D’Amérique’s inspirations, whom the New York Times calls a “father of Haitian letters,” and read his poem “Dialect of Hurricanes,” translated by André Naffis-Sahely.

“From the very beginning / the sea puts you in cosmic harmony / with all beings, all places . . .” Read four poems from René Depestre, another poet who inspired D’Amérique, translated by Anita Sagástegui.

Finally, check out Haiti My Country, a collection of poetry by teenagers in Haiti.

More Reflections on Haitian Literature

Why is it so difficult to find Haitian literature in translation? And what kind of picture of Haiti do the books that are published in English paint? Author Évelyne Trouillot, whose work is also on WWB Campus, has some ideas:

Sadly, it’s easy for publishers to fall into the trap of publishing texts that spread hastily formed impressions of a country and its people and unquestioningly recirculate damaging stereotypes.

Through the Lens: Haiti

A sidewalk scene in Port-au-Prince. By Clément Larrivé, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.

Looking for more images from Haiti? See more photography from “Haiti Beyond the Headlines” coauthor Ildiko Tillmann on LensCulture. Or, visit the photographer’s Instagram account.

More Literary Lullabies*

A children's book illustration of the fairies' lullaby from "A Midsummer Night's Dream." From Internet Archive Book Images, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Literature on WWB Campus:

“Do Not Tremble,” a twist on a lullaby in which the speaker tries to quiet an earthquake

Literature elsewhere:

“Lullaby,” by Reetika Vazirani, also available in her collection World Hotel
The fairies’ lullaby from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare (beginning at the line, “You spotted snakes with double tongue”)
“Lullaby in Fracktown,” by Lilace Mellin Guignard

You can learn the history of the lullaby and read excerpts from famous examples on Poets.org.

*For Teaching Idea 2

More Writing about Homelands*

Maya Angelou speaking in Baltimore, MD, 2001. By John Mathew Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

On WWB Campus:

“Sleepless Homeland”: From Mexico, this poem also expresses complicated feelings about a homeland
“The Poem”: An Iranian poem about leaving a homeland
“Garden of My Childhood”: a story about Korea at the time of the Korean War

Elsewhere:

Poems and essays:

Maya Angelou's “These Yet-to-Be United States” (1990)
Shirley Geok-Lin Lim “Learning to love America” ("because I say we rather than they") (1998)
“América” by Richard Blanco (1998)
The “Poetry of America” collection from the Library of Congress
New York City students’ multilingual poems about the Statue of Liberty, discussed in a blog post on this site and published on a class page.

Art and music:

The Whitney Museum exhibit America is Hard to See
"This Land is Your Land," by Woody Guthrie (lyrics)
"Uncle Sam Goddamn,” by Brother Ali (explicit lyrics)
“My Hometown,” by Bruce Springsteen (lyrics)
“Goodbye to All That” (excerpt), by Joan Didion: an essay about loving and leaving New York City

*For Teaching Idea 1

Reading Grade Level(s): 4, 5 and up

Key Points
Teaching “Poem for Children” to ELLs
1. Writing About Homelands
2. A Dark Lullaby

To access these Teaching Ideas, please register or login to WWB-Campus.

Poem for Children with Trouble Sleeping

Sleep little child,
little child, go to sleep
don’t budge
if your heart conks out
The State’ll use it
to keep its wheels turning

If your veins are slit,
don’t bleed out.
The State’s an engineer,
it needs blood
to pour the concrete
of death

Sleep little child,
little child, go to sleep
don’t beat yourself up
that’s why the cops have jobs
go on and sleep now,
don’t worry,
Boulòs’ll open another store, tomorrow
if I win the lottery,
I’ll buy you a dream.

Sleep little child,
little child, go to sleep
little child, go to sleep
when Mama comes home,
she’ll bring you a real country.

Related Reading

Sleepless Homeland - Poetry

The Poem - Poetry

Do Not Tremble - Poetry