Writing Haiti and the Caribbean Present

Onè.

I encountered Danielle Legros Georges’s work in 2018, specifically her poem “Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere,” republished in the online literary magazine PREE. The opening line reads, “O poorest country this is not your name.” It was a gentle yet firm rejection of the sensationalized narratives that often frame Haiti, devoid of historical context and justice. Composed in 2010, the year a devastating 7.0 earthquake struck, the poem broke with Western épistime that minimized Haiti and overlooked the lives of its people—the “girl with ribbons in her hair,” the “charcoal seller,” the “merchant woman,” the “eager clerk,” and the “grandfather at the gate.”¹ Through her literary imagination, Danielle gave voice to these ordinary people, whose everyday lives populated her consciousness and poetry. I distinctly recall people’s reactions to the “Haitian earthquake,” as if it were a uniquely Haitian phenomenon, intrinsic to its geography and existence. This prejudice is reminiscent of an old French condescension toward Haiti’s development challenges, history, and geography, labeling it a “singulier petit pays.”² Many, even within the Caribbean, believed the aftermath of this crisis was a deserved consequence for Haitians, attributing it to their practice of Vodou and African spiritualities, which seemingly clashed with Christian sensibilities (ideology). 

Among emerging writers in the Caribbean region, Small Axe and sx salon represent a coveted piece of real estate in Caribbean literary publishing. Writers aspire to be platformed t/here. Despite widespread discussions about decolonizing publishing and literature, works printed in the Caribbean region not only occupy but are relegated to a narrow niche of readers, and worse, are afforded less status than those produced internationally, even when the latter champion Caribbean poetics and aesthetics. I’d had a previous submission to sx salon rejected—a common experience for any writer. In November 2021, I submitted new work. Danielle had recently assumed the role of creative editor. She acknowledged my email in March 2022 and provisionally accepted my poems a month later. A follow-up email arrived: “Thanks for your prompt response, and your openness. If you’re in the States, I’d be happy to phone you—if beyond, let’s plan on Zoom. Might you have time tomorrow? If so, when might be best for you? (And let me know what time zone you’re in.)”

Our Zoom meeting began with my poems open for edits. Danielle was cautious in her criticism yet incredibly encouraging of the achievements in my submission of four poems about urban life in East Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. She agreed to publish three and work with me on the revisions. Like a “good postcolonial student,” I accepted all her revisions, diligently noting her questions and feedback. After her meticulous review, I could say only, “Thank you, Professor Legros Georges. I will make the changes within forty-eight hours and return to you.” Her reply, delivered with a laugh, was memorable: “Maybe we need more Caribbean students in the US. You all make it so easy.” The hierarchy I’d unconsciously established for the meeting allowed me to absorb her insights. My goal was not just to improve that submission; it was to improve as a poet. 

My poem “Barbara,” inspired by a 2021 Facebook photograph of the acclaimed Trinidadian fiction writer and memoirist Barbara Jenkins, seeks to capture the essence of her youth and her connection to Belmont. The striking black-and-white image shows Jenkins in an African print dress, looking as stunning then as she does today. The poem draws not only from the resonances of that photograph but also from my personal experience during one of her writing sessions at the Cropper Foundation’s Residential Workshop for Caribbean Writers. That workshop provided me with an intimate understanding of her sense of place in Belmont. My appreciation for the architecture of the urban village deepened during my fieldwork in East Port-of-Spain, where I had been immersed in it.

My initial submission to sx salon included the following stanza:

A sweet rain drizzled from your neck,
dampened the upper cut of your dress
and praised the body of your youth.
When you spoke of Belmont,
you spoke of carnival, the century-old houses
and your father whose pipe dispelled a smoke
that crawled the spaces beneath doors
and filled tiny cups of the porch’s allamanda.

Danielle, in her feedback, emphasized the importance of action and movement within the poem. She encouraged an economic use of words and a thoughtful approach to the creative use of space on the page. Incorporating her guidance, I revised the stanza, breaking it into two and enhancing its rhythm:

A sweet rain drizzled from your neck, dampened
the upper cut of your dress, and praised the body
of your youth. You spoke of Belmont,
carnivals, century-old houses, and your father.

The smoke from his pipe
filled the tiny cups of the allamanda.³

At the end of our hour-long meeting, Danielle uttered words I carry to this day: “What you are doing is important. You don’t write about a Caribbean past or one that is far away. You write about the present. Sometimes, writers who are in my position write about a Caribbean that we would not meet if we were to travel there today.” Holding a copy of The Caribbean Writer, in which I’d been published, she continued, “I try my best to read new writing in the Caribbean. It lets me know what is happening today. I’ve read your work before, amílcar. You can write about anything but continue to write about the present.”

In that affirmation, an affirmation for poetry rooted in the specific—in a car wash in Belmont, Trinidad, on Christmas morning, or the flat iron burns on a girl’s neck in her living room—I was made to feel that my world mattered. Among the many poets living and working in the Caribbean, we sometimes feel second class in the Caribbean literary world. (I don’t have the room in this tribute to write how spoken-word performers feel!) There’s a perception of an alchemy of “prodigals” and “writers in exile” who engage with global North publishing and vernaculars, while we in the Caribbean are praised for being “on-the-ground” writers, relegated to small features at literary festivals in our home countries. I understand that many Caribbean writers are made to feel inconsequential, even those who “go away” and succeed. But Danielle’s words didn’t just give me belief; they affirmed my experiential knowledge of the unevenness of this literary world I so ardently wished to join and the value of being small, being close, and being in contact with everyday Caribbean life. Later, as I delved into Danielle’s poetry, I understood there was more I could do, more beauty and joy I could write of and speak to, just as she had in “Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere.”

Danielle possessed an expansive vision of poetry and literature. She regarded spoken-word poets and other forms of oral poetry as equally important as the written word. Her vision, honed as Poet Laureate of Boston, impressed me. She understood that poetry was meant to be public, practiced by diverse groups of people. In an interview, she expressed concern that some had experienced “poetry trauma,” perceiving it as “unknowable or difficult.”⁴ Notwithstanding, she believed poetry already existed within people.

In November 2024, I had my last written exchange with Danielle by email. I informed her that I was moving to Finland to complete a project, that one poetry chapbook was slated for publication by Peekash Press in Trinidad and Tobago, and that I was preparing to send out another chapbook and a full-length poetry manuscript for review. Two weeks later, she replied, “Sending warm greetings from Boston,” despite the cold that had already gripped the city. She congratulated me and invited me to submit more poetry to sx salon for consideration. A few months after my note, in February 2025, she died. I had lost a poet and guide. Danielle elevated the visibility of writers from the Caribbean, the United States, and various diasporas. In reviews, rather than dissecting work with a machete to dictate, she posed insightful questions that prompted writers to think more deeply. Like some of the best guides in my writing journey, she showed me how to develop a practice of care working with new writers, how to speak to the “Caribbean present” with the same fervor we have for its past and futures, and the imperative to construct publics where we can see the poetry we all carry in our everyday lives. 

Even though we live(d) in different environments, each with its own advantages and disadvantages for promoting poetry publicly, the admirable continuity and apparent sustainability (if only by its continued existence) of poet laureate programs in Jamaica and now in the British Virgin Islands, along with the hope for a structured vision and resources for one in Trinidad and Tobago, show us a model of how we can champion poetry for the benefit of all, as a public good. This allows us to foster the changes we desire to see not only in literature but also in society. A mere handful of email exchanges, one virtual meeting, and pleasantries on social media set a fire in me. As Danielle demanded for her home island-nation, she too should be called “beacon” and “flame” for us. She was for me. I am a richer writer for these brief interactions.

Respè.

amílcar peter sanatan is an interdisciplinary Caribbean artist, educator, and activist. He is from Trinidad and Tobago, currently working between East Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and Helsinki, Finland. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, About Kingston (Peekash, 2025) and The Black Flâneur: Diary of Dizain Poems, Anthropology of Hurt (Ethel Zine and Micro Press, 2025).

[1] Danielle Legros Georges, “Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere,” PREE, 10 April 2018, https://preelit.com/2018/04/10/poem-for-the-poorest-country-in-the-western-hemisphere/. The poem was first featured on Public Broadcasting Service’s Bill Moyers Journal, 22 January 2010, https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01222010/profile3.html.

[2] Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “The Odd and the Ordinary: Haiti, the Caribbean and the World,” Vibrant 17 (2020): 3. 

[3] Amílcar Peter Sanatan, “Barbara,” sx salon, no. 42 (February 2023), https://smallaxe.net/sxsalon/poetry-prose/poems-amilcar-peter-sanatan.   

[4] Hopkinton Community Access and Media, “Danielle Legros Georges,” YouTube, 3 June 2015, 28:00 (accessed 18 August 2025), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52GZm6Ix4LI.