Fire on the Tongue - Paperback

by Patrick Sylvain (Author)

"Expansive in scope and incisive in vision, Patrick Sylvain's Fire on the Tongue distills poetry from memory and experience as only this great poet can. Matching the richness of his legendary oeuvre in Kreyól, Sylvain's poetry carries us across time and region-Haiti, the Caribbean, the US-toward an elementary lyric fire."

John Keene

"I use words," writes Patrick Sylvain, "to speak for scorched tongues." What has scorched those tongues is the complex set of experiences that compose his Haitian-American identity. Sylvain's poetry carries within it many legacies of his native island's painful history. HIs poetry is also motivated in no small part by a sense of Haiti's resistance to that colonial oppression. Coming of age in contemporary America, especially with its racial hypocrisies, provides yet another scorching dimension to Sylvain's work. And there is also the broader story of an immigrant's questioning of where his true home actually is. What holds these complexities together is Sylvain's artful celebration of language itself. Sylvain has written in and translated extensively from Haitian-Creole, but for this collection, the poetry is in English. From metaphorical richness to precise, sensual imagery to intense, expressive musicality, Sylvain speaks a language here that is on fire with joy and sorrow, courage and love.

--Fred Marchant

Author of Said Not Said (Graywolf Press)