The French and Francophone Studies Department presents Haitian Literature/Poetry/Performance with Twin Cities Haitian artists:  Gabrielle Civil, Beaudelaine Pierre and Valerie Deus

Did you know that Haiti has one of the highest per capita number of writers in the world? It is a well-kept secret. This is also true of the Twin Cities. Three among a number of Haitian writers and artists living in the Twin Cities will present their work at Macalester.

Gabrielle Civil is a black woman poet, translator, conceptual and performance artist originally from Detroit, MI.  Her original writing and translations of Haitian poet Jacqueline Beaugé Rosier have been published in Two Lines, Dislocate, XCP:  Cross Cultural Poetics and Women in Performance. An Associate Professor of English, Women's Studies and Critical Studies of Race & Ethnicity at St. Catherine University, she is currently circulating her critical/creative text Swallow the Fish: Adventures in Black Feminist Performance Art.  The aim of her work is to open up space.

Beaudelaine Pierre has written three novels, two of them published in France, La négresse de Saint-Domingue and L'enfant qui voulait devenir président (2011). A fellow from the International Writers Program in Iowa, she co-edited the first post-earthquake volume of testimonials/poetry/short texts written entirely by Haitian artists, in French, Creole and English, How to Write an Earthquake/Mo Pou 12 Janvyé.

Valerie Deus is well-published poet in the United States. She teaches English at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus. Her work has appeared in several highly regarded poetry and creative writing journals and anthologies.

This Lecture will be in English, French and Creole