Unequal Distribution and Other Poems
- Unequal Distribution and Other Poems
Unequal Distribution
Dedicated to our young Haitian girlswho carried whistles and to Faila herself
Unequal distribution that forces five-year-old Faila to wear around her neck that whistle so she is not raped at night going to the makeshift bathroom in tent city Pétion-Ville
Unequal distribution and a whistle and a flashlight that do not stop her ten-year-old sister from the pouncing hands of her assailants flashlight and all
unequal distribution of food water energy shelter
different lives different destinies [End Page 158]
two nations in one before the quake and after the earth cracked open two nations in one
unequal distribution caused by unequal exchanges with imperialist powers that fleece Haiti for four hundred years unequal distribution by neo-liberal policies and organizations that took more than they gave two nations in one
unequal distribution from succeeding irresponsible governments that never represented the people unequal distribution by corrupt civil servants who dominated and betrayed those they were in charge of educating and protecting two nations in one
unequal distribution then and now in a country stratified as moun anwo, moun anba uptown people, downtown peoplemoun lavil, moun andeyo city people, country peoplemoun ki moun, moun ki pa moun people who are people, people who are not people unequal distribution by gran manjè, ti manjè big thieves, small thieves local exploiters, foreign moguls as our girls are raped and preyed upon
How many cups of revolution will it take to reconstruct and rebuild Haiti?
How many cups of revolution will it take for little Faila to throw away her whistle and dream of a new Haiti? [End Page 159]
Darkness
For Kyrah It is hard to be very scared and be very little in the rubble
and wait
for the morning that never comes [End Page 160]
[End Page 161]
Claudine Michel, a native of Haiti, is a professor in the Department of Black Studies and Director of the Center for Black Studies Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds BA degrees from the State University of Haiti and an MA and PhD in International Education from the University of California. Since 1997, she has served as editor of the premier academic journal on Haiti, the Journal of Haitian Studies. She is a founding member of KOSANBA, a scholarly association for the study of Haitian Vodou, and Kalfou, a journal of comparative and relational ethnic studies. Among other works, she is also co-editor of The Black Studies Reader (Routledge, 2004), as well as Invisible Powers: Vodou In Haitian Life and Culture (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006) and Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality (Indiana University Press, 2006). She currently serves as consultant for the Direct Relief International community-grant programs in Haiti established after the quake.
Note
1. Gran Brigit is the first female buried in a cemetery. She is the mother of the Gede, spirits of life, death, and sexuality in the Vodou religion. The Gédé are tricksters who are said to have a special relationship with children. [End Page 162]
