New World Avengers

Remembering Bwa Kayiman

A few years ago, at a fundraising dinner, I recited a poem that riffed on a 19th century poem by Haitian intellectual Herard Dumesle. The words of Dumesle’s poem are now associated in living myth with the fighting spirit invoked by Sesil Fatima and Boukman, and included a call to discard an image that only thirsted for our tears.