Young Haitian writers look to the future

It was just a few days before the anniversary of the earthquake. I had been invited to attend a meeting of a youth writing group in Port-au-Prince.

American graduate student Laura Wagner helped start the group. She was living in Haiti at the time of the quake.

Like so many others, she was trapped under the rubble and injured.  In the aftermath she wanted to do something that felt useful. She teamed up with her friend Marlene Jean-Pierre, a student and community organizer, and the group was born.

“It's a very open place,” says Laura Wagner. “People know each other; they talk about things without a lot of reservations or fear. One of the rules of the group is that the texts go out, but what happens in the group stays in the group. I think in a lot of ways it's actually kind of therapeutic. It's not conceived that way and we're not professional therapists, but it's sort of a place to meet and talk about things.”

The writers range in age from 16 to 25. Most are students, a couple are teachers. Some go by names like G-Love and Atom.

They meet most Saturday afternoons in this a classroom in an elementary school in Pont Rouge, not far from Cite Soleil.

News reports don't usually describe Cite Soleil in flattering terms – outsiders generally regard it as a crime-ridden slum – but these young people want you to know it's also a vibrant neighborhood full of creativity and talent.

They've called themselves the Konbit des Jeunes Penseurs – the Gathering of Young Thinkers.

Marlene Jean-Pierre explains that these are people who aren’t in art school or performing arts school, but who know how to write really well, are very expressive and have lots of opinions about their community.

“The idea is to have a place where they can come together to express a new vision for their country,” she says.

And they do that by reading Haitian literature and writing their own poems and stories – about the earthquake, about cholera, about religion, but also about life and love and sex.

Laura Wagner says there’s also a lot of teasing.

“Haitians joke a lot,” she says. “When they're comfortable with you they'll make fun of you, which is why when I'm late I have to sing.”

Marlene Jean-Pierre smiles and says she thinks the group laughs too much sometimes. But on this occasion, just a few days before the anniversary of the earthquake, there's not a lot of laughing, at least not yet.

People straggle in. The tone is subdued. It's the same all over the city. People are bracing themselves.

Laura Wagner asks where everyone is. It turns out some of the group are late because they're preparing a special performance.

I'm here to sit in on a regular meeting, but it looks as if today's meeting will be irregular. Still, the delay gives me time to interview a member of the group, 19 year old poet Assephie Petit-Frere.

But first she peppers me with questions.  What's your name? How old are you? Are you married? How many kids do you have? What is your goal as a journalist? When I tell her I hope journalism makes things better, she says, "In Haiti, our leadership lacks responsibility for the people."

I ask her what happened to her during the earthquake.

“I was at school,” Petit-Frere says. “We were writing. The teacher was in front of the class. One student said ‘What was that?’ Then everyone felt the ground shaking.

"I was on the second floor," she continues, "and I felt as though my feet were going into the ground. The school collapsed but not evenly. The floor above us fell on the students at the front of the class. I saw a hole and crawled out. And then I saw the whole four story school had fallen. Everybody was crying Jesus Jesus and when I got out I thanked God I was alive. I had survived."

I ask Assephie Petit-Frere if she'll read one of her poems for me. It's called Cruel Love. She doesn't have a copy with her so we use my iPhone to pull up the group's website.

She reads the poem off the tiny screen. It is indeed about cruel love, and betrayal and loss. Eventually everyone arrives and the session begins, about an hour later than usual.

Mwen sonje lè nou te fèk rankontre

Se te toujou bèl ti pawòl ki konn tonbe

Ou te menm konn di m’ an nou pataje rèv nou

Pou nou de a te ka fè youn tout antye

Jis pou lanmou nou te ka blayi kon sab lanmè

Boujonnen chak jou tankou flè dizè.

Ou te tèlman vle wa nan palè m’

Ou te rive poze kandida nan peyi m’

Avèk pi fò espwa w’ te konn ban m’

Jis ou rive fè m’ abandone tout fanmi m’

Bliye tout konsèy yo te konn ban m’

Ou pran m’ w’ale abite nan peyi byen lwen avè m’

Kote ou tounen mizisyen e wosiyòl se koris k’ap ofri

bèl melodi nan kè m’

Ou te fè m’ konprann ou se sèl asirans lavi m’

Adye lanmou… Pòdyab moun ki twò damou

Ou te di m’ an nal fè yon ti penso

San ran n’ kont ou te gentan pentire m’

Ala traka papa pou lave kay tè a

Ou fin ansent mwen, kounye a de pye m’ trouve l’

Nan yon sèl grenn soulye

Epi w’ vire kite m’ nan yon dezè mwen sèl

Malgre lè w te wè m’, m’ te tankou yon bèl

ti mango jon sou pye

Nan gade, gade ou te teke m’ ak yon ti wòch

Jiskaske ou te rive keyi m’, lè fwi sa a rive nan men w’

ou te pran l’

ou te karese l’

ou te adore l’

ou te chouchoute l’

Aprè sa ou te dekale l’

Ou te souse l’ byen souse

Jiskaske l’ te vin tou blanch, ou te voye l’

Nan yon gran chimen.

Tande nègan m’!

Si w pat’ konn sa jodiya, aprann sa:

Pa gen lòt kote yo kenbe chwal malen ke chimen jennen.

Tande zanman m.

Se lè sa a mwen wè ou ta pral montre m’

Yon bagay mwen p’at janm konnen

Sa fè m’ konprann ke lanmou se tankou

Yon montay ou monte pandan kè w’ kontan

E lè w’ap desann li ou desann avèk dlo nan je

E ke m’ kapab di ke yon moun pa ta sipoze

Dwe janm fè konfyans ak lanmou.

I remember when we’d just met

Beautiful words always fell from your lips.

You used to tell me, let’s share our dreams

For the two of us to become one.

And our love spread forth like sand from the sea,

Blossoming every day like a ten o’clock flower.

You wanted so to be the king of my palace,

You became a candidate to rule my land,

With the strongest hope you could give me,

Until at last you made me abandon all my family,

And forget all the advice they used to give me.

You took me and you spirited me to a far-away land,

Where you became a musician and a mockingbird,

A chorus singing beautiful melodies in my heart.

You made me think you were the only sure thing in my life.

Alas, love… Poor souls who are too in love!

You told me we would just make a little love.

Before I knew it, you had come inside me.

Oh, one can never get a dirt house clean.

You got me pregnant.  Now I find myself

With two feet in a single shoe.

And then you turn and flee, leaving me alone in this desert.

But when you first saw me, I was like

A lovely little yellow mango on a tree

And you looked and looked, and you hit me with a little rock

Until at last you knocked me down, until the fruit fell into your hands.

You took it.

You caressed it.

You adored it.

You called it “chouchou.”

Then after that you skinned it,

You sucked it until there was nothing left to suck,

Until it was colorless.  And then you threw it

In an alleyway.

Listen here, dear man of mine.

If you didn’t know this already, it’s time to learn:

You can only catch a clever horse by cornering it.

Listen here, my friend.

That’s when I saw you would teach me

Something I never knew before.

And so I came to understand that love is like

A mountain that you climb when you are happy,

And when you come down, you come down with tears in your eyes.

And that I can say that can say now that a person should

Never, ever have faith in love.

-Assephie Petit-Frere

The mystery performance turns out to be a five-minute piece about the earthquake.

It's a simple piece but the effect is powerful. A couple of people leave the room in tears. Others go out to console them.

Marlene turns to me and says, "If you'd been here during the earthquake, you'd be crying too." I suddenly feel self-conscious, not sure whether I should keep recording. The writers invited me here to witness their weekly meeting, not to expose their pain.

A few minutes pass. The room fills back up. And what happens next transforms the room. Laura Wagner translates for me: “They've promised they're going to do a text that's going to make people not sad anymore.”

People start reading silly poems and telling jokes, about anything and everything, about women, about breadfruit, about a young man, eager to impress his new girlfriend's family, trying to blame his farts on the dog. Unsuccessfully.

Soon everyone is spluttering with laughter. Some people are doubled over. The grief dissipates, stamped out by all the hilarity. Now I understand what poet Assephie Petit-Frere told me earlier.

“I like the group,” she says. “Ever since we came together, we've been happy. If you have a problem, it goes away.”

For the moment at least. Laura Wagner wrote about the meeting in an essay for an anthropology blog a few days later. She noted that the laughter wasn't necessarily inspirational.  She writes:  "It doesn't allow us to say, you see, they've still got laughter. Everything is going to be all right in Haiti."

That's for sure. But as Wagner also points out, humor does allow these young people to assert their humanity.

To control their own stories a bit. And to laugh at all the awfulness around them.

One of the main goals of the writing group is to project a different image of Haiti than the one you see on the news. These young artists yearn to be seen as full human beings, not just victims.

Laura Wagner wants that for them too. She translates their material into English and posts it on the group's website. "I'm like their agent," she says.

"But they do all the work."