November 5th, 2024_USA
It’s fitting, like a cold ricochet of grief,
I’m here the day the clocks fall back.
After years of shelter, when I fed you
the empty promises of a quieter world,
holding you steady,
Patrick Sylvain is a Haitian-American educator, poet, writer, social and literary critic, and translator who has published widely on Haiti and Haitian diaspora culture, politics, language, and religion. He is the author of several poetry books in English and Haitian, and his poems have been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. His work has been published in several anthologies, academic journals, books, magazines, and reviews including: African American Review, Agni, American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Chicago Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Transition, and The Caribbean Writer. Sylvain has degrees from the University of Massachusetts (BA), Harvard University (EdM), Boston University (MFA), and Brandeis University (PhD, English), where he was the Shirle Dorothy Robbins Creative Writing Prize Fellow. Sylvain has served as a lecturer at Brown University, Harvard University, and Brandeis University. He is an Assistant Professor in Global/Transnational/Postcolonial Literature at Simmons University, and also serves as a member of the History and Literature Tutorial Board at Harvard. His poetry chapbook, Underworlds, was published by Central Square Press in 2018, and he was a featured poet on Benjamin Boone’s Poetry and Jazz CD The Poets are Gathering (2020). Sylvain is the lead author of Education Across Borders: Immigration, Race, and Identity in the Classroom published by Beacon Press (2022), and his academic book—Scorched Pearl of Antilles: A Critique of Haiti’s Political Leadership—is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan. His most recent bilingual poetry collection, Unfinished Dreams/Rèv San Bout, was published by JEBCA Editions (2024).