Trouillot, Evelyne

SJ Fowler interviews Evelyne Trouillot for Poetry Parnassus

SJF: You have consistently used your gift as a writer and poet to engage with the issues that lie at the core of Haitian culture and political history. Do you feel you have a responsibility to do so? Is this sense of record, of commentary, of responsibility a fundamental reason you write?

ET: When one writes it is mostly out of a desire to express certain feelings, certain emotions or ideas that give meaning to life. The issues that I raise in my writing   are those that   inhabit me at the time. And since life here is so complex, so immediate in its intensity there are many issues that nourish the imagination and the intellect. There is in me this urgency to address certain issues that seem important to me. I feel that I have to say these things in my own way. If I tend to engage mostly with issues that lie at the core of Haitian society, it is out of a need to share my ideas and feelings, with the ultimate desire to find a way to create some sense. A literary creation cannot change the world, it has been said before and it is always necessary to remember this important truth,- it certainly keeps us writers and poets humble!-  but it is also necessary to keep in mind that it can shape and bend peoples’ perceptions, it can alter in minimal ways people’s viewpoints. This is a very minimal gain but this is the one most writers hope for.   

SJF: While in the context of poetry one doesn't wish to overstate political history, the history of Haiti is one steeped in violence and often tragedy. The natural disasters the nation has faced in the aftermath of great political repression and violence must be an overwhelming weight upon you as a poet and teacher in Haiti, how possibly can an artist respond to the immensity of the problems Haiti has faced?

ET: I think an artist’s creation should highlight aspects of humanity in any situation.  Through my writing I try to create sense from the chaos that I see around me. To create sense and beauty. If it is true that Haiti experiences oftentimes political repression and violence and natural catastrophes that aggravate its poverty and make life difficult, it is also a place where human beings are living. If it is true that Haiti has faced and is still facing immense problems, it is also a place where people fall in love, play, work, fight with each other and die peacefully in their beds like everywhere else. Haiti cannot be reduced to the problems that she faces. The desire to find humanity in the midst of terrible sorrow and disarray keeps me writing. Not in an effort to minimize the pain or the violence, not in order to ignore the turmoil or its effects on people, but to see the different avenues men and women chose when dealing with hardship.  To show how humanity finds ways to stay alive and fight, how humanity persists and how beauty and grandeur can be found in all places, places unexpected according to the most common criteria.  To me, living in Haiti does not constitute a burden, the difficulties are part of what Haiti is, and I take it all, good and bad.  I try to do my part, a very   modest part, to change the unacceptable, I recognize and enjoy the good and I live with the rest, putting it all in perspective and always defining what is essential and what is not.  

SJF: Just your continued presence in Port au Prince must be a definitive statement, that you refuse any sense of laxity, of slothfulness...that you will maintain your home as best you can. Is this true do you think?

ET: I live in Port-au-Prince because this is my birth place and this is where I learned to be who I am and where the majority of the people I love live, my family and my friends. I guess these are the same reasons that explain most people’s choice of habitat. While saying this, I cannot escape the images of the great number of people around the world who have no choice in where they live. Forced migrations are the calamity, the scourge of the modern world and this is a terrible tragedy when families are divided, when human beings die in containers or in tunnels because they are trying to find a better place to live, when men and women have to suffer indignities and humiliations to cross borders. Therefore, I feel privileged to be able to live where I chose to. Because living in Haiti is indeed a choice that I made without any sense of duty but out of the most personal and selfish reason: this is the place where I am the happiest; this is the place where I can be myself to the fullest. However, this is also the place where the demands are the more important, where I have to be vigilant with myself, where I have to be willing to relentlessly question my actions and my choices because the stakes are the highest. Living in Port-au-Prince requires a deep sense of awareness of others, of the social inequalities and complexities. Otherwise, it will be like participating in the immense and unacceptable inequalities that have characterized Haitian society from the start.

SJF: Could you discuss the Pré-texte project?

ET: For a while I worked for the Ministry of Education and then as a school principal. Meanwhile, writing was taking more and more importance in my life although I could not live from my writing alone.  Creating pré-Texte was the best way to combine writing and activities that could be financially rewarding. Pré-Texte functions as a consultant firm that writes pedagogical documents for some international agencies, organizes training sessions for teachers and other educational staff, while it can also organize writing workshops for young aspiring writers or reading workshops for those interested in reading and discussing literature in general. This is a great way to do what I like best, writing and reading, while getting income from it. It allows me to devote more time to writing creatively.

SJF: Is it true you write in three languages, English, French and Creole. Do you allow the nature of the work to decide the language it is written in?

ET: I write in two languages Creole and French. I read English and can make some suggestions to a  translator working on one of my texts, but I don’t have the audacity to write in English because I don’t think I master  the language enough to play with it and make it my own.  And this is also why at the beginning I wrote mostly in French, I still do, but I include more and more Creole writing these past few years. Because I think I have learned to use Creole as a literary language.  But when I write, it is correct to say that the nature and the theme chose their language, the words that would best express them. This is an unconscious choice where the writing project selects the language and the most effective way to accomplish itself.  However, I have to say that it is not a coincidence if the majority of Haitian writers now   write in the two languages. The emergence of Creole as a literary language coincides with social changes, new voices that want to be heard and new social dynamics that cannot be denied. So, there is also a social dimension behind the linguistic choices.  

SJF: And it is truly rare for a poet to be multi-lingual in their creative output, a major achievement on your part. In what language do you feel most at home?

ET: The fact that I am multilingual is basically linked to the circumstances of my birth and I truly had, like all of us, no choice in the matter. Educated Haitians of my generation are mostly bilingual, French and Creole, and even English and/or Spanish speakers as well. But I chose to write in the two languages, like many other Haitian writers, as I said previously.  To be honest I will say that most of my literary references are in French, but for the creation I tend to go both ways, French is not the automatic choice anymore especially for poetry.  I decided I was ready to write in Creole when I felt the same level of mastery that I have in French. It was important to me to treat both languages with respect and to write in Creole not out of a sense of obligation or worse out of a “folklorist or demagogic” point of view but because it is truly a language that is an integral part of my life and part of my creative project.

SJF: Is Creole alive and thriving as a creative language in poetry and writing?

ET: In the last thirty or forty years Creole has started making its debut on the Haitian literary scene.   Especially in poetry. Of course, there were a few poets using Creole before. Oswald Durand was one of the first Haitian writers to use Creole in its famous text called Choucoune in l883; a few years later Choucoune became a song well known by most Haitians and around the world as Yellow bird. In the 1970 and 80’s, Haitians living in the US and Canada used Creole to compose songs against the Duvalier regime. Well acclaimed Haitian poet George Castera published many books of poetry in Creole at the time. He continued to do so when he came back to Haiti and is one of Haiti’s greatest poets both in French and Creole. There were also plays produced in the 70’s. Since the departure of Duvalier, and the freedom of expression that followed, Creole was liberated and recognized as a language in its own right. Many books were published by different writers; the quality was not always there but the freedom of expression helped to slowly build a literary corpus in Creole and opens the way to a diversified and rich production. Some young playwrights in Creole have opened the way to a renewed Haitian theatre. Actually, we have a very good corpus in Creole poetry, plays, fiction and essays in Creole and I foresee more in the future.

SJF: One would hope it is occasions such as Poetry Parnassus which provide the best evidence that poetry from beyond ‘the West’ and its dominant mode is being recognized and given its proper place and standing. Poets from a truly global range of traditions will read alongside each other as equals, no matter their language, ethnicity or style. Do you think progress has made been made in this regard, or is your experience that there is some way to go, or the problems are fundamental and structural?

ET: I think this is a sign of the progress accomplished in that regard while at the same time it reflects the limitations. There is a definite urge by the West to include artists and writers who produced outside the “West” in their venues. Because on the one hand, there is a genuine need to know and understand, a real inclination to accept and share, and on the other because I think that the artistic production from the West is going through a period of self-doubt and stagnation. For me, it is not a coincidence that many productions that are well received globally come from writers originally issued or  based in areas or countries outside the West: India, the West indies, Africa for example.   Exchanges such as Poetry Parnassus cannot totally escape current geopolitical dynamics, but they can certainly allow a more liberated sharing of world poetry, a more open vision of the world literary production.  As such, they can generate cultural dialogues imbued with respect and open-mindedness.    For me, it is also important that cultural exchanges be made directly from all regions and especially between regions sharing similar economic and political situations. We have to establish bridges between regions and countries, cultural areas of exchange, and somehow go beyond the political and economic constraints.

SJF: What epoch, or style, or individual poet has had the greatest influence on your own work? Has the work of Rene Depestre and Rene Philoctete and other 20th century figures of Haitain literature played a fundamental part in the shape of your work?

ET: As a young girl, I listened to and read René Depestre and Anthony Phelps poetry. Upon my return to Haiti, I read and reread time and time again René Philoctète, one of my favorite poets along with Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Mahmoud Darwich and Georges Castera. I read poetry from different places, like American poets Kay Ryan and Audre Lorde for example, and I feel lucky to be able to immerse myself in these great works from different origins. I am certain that a lot of poets have put their mark on me and have somehow invaded my own words and thoughts. This is after all what great poetry is about. Poetry has the capacity to permeate people’s minds and infuse words and images. One cannot escape from great poetry. It leaves its mark on you. I cannot begin to list all the poets that have probably infiltrated my work and I am grateful to all of them for their presence. We need poetry more than ever in a world where profitability seems to be the final objective of even cultural activities. We need poetry to remind us of the beauty and grandeur of humankind.    

About the interviewer:

SJ Fowler (1983) is the author of four poetry collections. He has had poetry commissioned by the Tate Britain and the London Sinfonietta, and has featured in over 100 poetry publications. He is poetry editor of 3am magazine, Lyrikline and the Maintenant interview series.
sjfowlerpoetry.com
maintenant.co.uk