In mid-2026, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration, affirming the legality of the move by DHS to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals, among others, who now face the cancellation of work authorizations and likely deportation. The U.S. President has made Haitian immigrants and refugees a target of his vitriol and racist agenda. Perhaps there is no better time, then, to read the work of Haitian poets and authors who provide vital lenses—both wide-angled and close-up—capturing the lives of Haitians, the challenging history of Haiti, the conditions for those who by choice or lack of opportunity remain in the island nation, and those who fled cruel regimes, choosing instead to live in exile. We discover not only the legacies of colonialism and slavery—violence, corruption, economic injustice—but also, crucially, the resilience of the people, the beauty of the land, the refuge to be found in community there.
Translator and poet Danielle Legros Georges translated the work of three remarkable women poets: Évelyne Trouillot, Marie-Célie Agnant, and Maggy de Coster. Each poet’s distinctive, urgent voice brings clarity to places and realities whose challenges our Western media often oversimplifies, misunderstands, and all too often simply forgets once the news cycle moves on. Each poet reveals the complexities of living in the shadow of violence and terror while claiming a language and a voice with which to speak of both the unspeakable and the beautiful, of displacement and connection—with self, with others, with history, with nature, with place. In the commentary to her own poem included below, Danielle Legros Georges asks where does one start a story involving oppression and freedom? Each of these poets begins in her own way and travels her own roads of images and words, roads on which we are privileged now to be able to accompany them.
Born in Gonaïves, Haiti in 1964, Legros Georges was the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation grant. Her previous translation from the French, Island Heart: The poems of Ida Faubert, appeared in 2021 from Subpress Books. With Blue Flare, she made her debut as a translator of Kreyòl, the language Évelyne Trouillot uses for the work included in this collection. Ms. Legros Georges died in February 2025 at the age of 60.
This review is dedicated to Danielle Legros Georges, in appreciation for the love and care this collection represents. Here is a 2010 poem of hers from poet.org.
Poem for the Poorest Country in The Western Hemisphere
O poorest country, this is not your name.
You should be called beacon. You should
be called flame. Almond and bougainvillea,
garden and green mountain, villa and hut,
girl with red ribbons in her hair
books under arm, charmed by the light
of morning, charcoal seller in black skirt,
encircled by dead trees. You, country,
are merchant woman and eager clerk,
grandfather at the gate, at the crossroads
with the flashlight, with all in sight.