30190: Netchinsky (news/info): Tontongi on Poet Paul Laraque , Dead at 86 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jill <JillJonah@aya.yale.edu>

From Tontongi, Boston, March 10, 2007

Paul Laraque  Has Died/ Lanmò Pòl Larak

The great revolutionary poet Paul Laraque died on
March 8, 2007, at 5 AM, in New York; he was 86
years old (September 21, 1920 - March 8, 2007).
He is survived by his his brother Franck Laraque,
children Max, Serge and Danielle,  and many
grand-children, nephews and nieces.

One of the greatest poets of the twentieth and
early twenty-first centuries, Paul Laraque united
a beautiful and surrealist lyric poetry with
political consciousness to "changer la vie."  For
him poetry could be a "fighting weapon" on behalf
of people struggling against class exploitation,
foreign domination and cultural alienation, in
the tradition of Jacques Roumain, Massillon
Coicou, Louis Aragon, Nicolás Guillén, and Pablo
Neruda.

Paul was one of the poets who welcomed Alisa and
André Breton at Port-au-Prince airport during the
Surrealist guru's first visit to Haiti in
December 1945. He left Haiti in 1961 for New York
City, USA, where his wife Marcelle rejoined him
the following year.  Paul was deprived of his
Haitian citizenship from 1964 to 1986 for
opposition to the Duvaliers' dictatorship.  He
received Cuba's Casa de las Americas Poetry Prize
in 1979 for his work Les armes quotidiennes /
Poésie quotidienne ("Everyday Weapons / Everyday
Poetry"). His published works include, among
others, Ce qui demeure ("What has remained"),
Festibal ("Slingshot"), Camourade, Sòlda mawon
("Maroon Soldier") and the anthology Oeuvres
incomplètes ("Incomplete Works").  He was
co-editor (with Jack Hirschman) and one of the
authors of Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian
Creole Poetry, Curbstone Press, 2001. With his
brother Franck, he recently published the
critical memoir, Haiti: entre la lutte et
l'espoir ("Haiti: Between Struggle and Hope"),
Edition Cidihca, 2004.

Besides his impressive and skillful handling of
the French and Creole languages in his poems, we
will retain from Paul Laraque an indomitable
commitment to social justice and political
liberation in ways that transcend specific
historical conjunctures.  He experienced
political heartbreaks, including the dismantling
of the Soviet Union and the unraveling of the
Haitian popular movement, following the hopeful
winds of 1986 and 1991,  but he never showed
signs of discouragement or despair. Until the
very end he remained a champion of Haiti's
independence and the cause of political equality
and human liberation in general.  Until the very
end he believed that Haiti will one day be
beautiful and nurturing to its people again,
liberated from foreign domination, and its people
free from class exploitation.  He will be missed.

-Tontongi
(Editor of Tanbou)

The trilingual politico-literary journal
Tanbou.com is preparing a special issue on Paul
Laraque; please send submissions (poems, reviews,
studies, photos, personal reflections, etc.) to :
editors@tanbou.com
(www.tanbou.com)


INFORMATION ON SERVICES / ENFÒMASYON SOU ANTÈMAN :
Paul Laraque (September 21, 1920-March 8, 2007)
Husband of Marcelle Laraque
Father of Max, Serge and Danielle Laraque
Services on March 15, 2007
Viewing 3-6pm
Services 6-8pm Directions Below
March 16, 2007
Funeral at 280-284 Ferncliff Cemetery
Secor Road, Hartsdale, NY
In lieu of flowers please send donations to:
Lambi Fund of Haiti
PO Box 18955
Washington DC 20036
www.lambifund.org