specificities of the Haitian landscape, Haitian writers and journalists coined parts of Durand’s
poetry as “Le Parnasse haïtien.”^210
The most important aspect of Parnassian poetry which impacted Durand’s work does notdeal with descriptive realism, mastery of poetic techniques, or nature. It rests with the vivid
portrayals of various Haitian cultural practices. There are the few poems in Rires et Pleurs,
which unlike any of the other poems mentioned, speak of Haiti and its religious culture with a
type of ancient mystique similar to civilizations portrayed by Leconte de Lisle in Poèmes
antiques. These verses from Durand’s poem “Sur le morne lointain” are about Haitian voodoo
practice:
Sur le morne lointain, semé de blanches cases
Le tambour qui rugit le chant mystérieux
Du magique vaudoux aux divines extases,
Où l’on immole un bouc, où l’on brise des vases,
Enivre les papas, qui battent, furieux,
Le tambour qui rugit le chant mystérieux
Sur le morne lointain, semé de blanches cases (1-7)The alexandrine verse of the poem transposes the topic into one worthy of high poeticexpression. Although voodoo was widely practiced, it is understandably not a common theme in
Haitian poetry. Not only would voodoo be seen as detracting from modernity, but any realistic
account of voodoo in poetry would only have reinforced the stereotypes of the barbarity of
Haitians and especially of the country’s black peasants. Speaking of voodoo as distant, ancient,
and mysterious, however, subtly but safely details the religion constantly threatened during anti-
voodoo campaigns of various mulatto governments and condemned by the Roman Catholic
Church throughout the nineteenth century. The poem describes what during Durand’s lifetime
could well be the future projection of lost traditions and ancient folklore.
(^210) Haïti littéraire et sociale [Port-au-Prince] mai: 1906: 354.