Sounding Francophone Caribbean Poetics

Abstract

Abstract The chapter explores the way sound is a key marker of Caribbean being. It analyzes poetry of the region, beginning with the early nineteenth century works anthologized in Poetry of Haitian Independence, a bilingual volume that gathers many forgotten and neglected poems written between 1804 and the late 1840s. The chapter explores the various ways in which sounds are used by the poets as the new nation sought to assert itself on its own terms and create a sense of unity and common purpose in a land torn apart by a long period of war and by the legacies of colonialism and slavery. By reading and listening to the poems in this way, the reader gains a sense of the importance of sounds to the written form, and by extension to the broader culture, in ways that confirm that sound was a vital element in forming early Caribbean subjectivities.