I address the poems in which the threat of foreign intervention is portrayed as animminent reality in which corrupt Haitian officials are often complicit. Although these poems
forcefully denounce foreign intrusion in multiple ways, national viability is further threatened
through rivaling powers within Haitian society. Coicou’s indictments of American capitalism,
German gun-boat policy and constant civil wars reveal the extent to which the Haitian
experience is still inescapably linked to conflict and military aggression.
In the section on “Race, Nation, and Coicou’s génie africain,” I examine theunprecedented importance accorded to race in Coicou’s texts. I begin by citing the poems about
the Haitian Revolution, many of which anachronistically portray black/mulatto solidarity in the
Haitian Revolution, all in an effort to forge present racial unity. Poems about the Revolution and
the slave trade also anchor Haiti’s history in that of the African diaspora, as a nation predicated
on race must display a consciousness beyond its borders.
I conclude this chapter with the poems and biographical information leading up to hisexecution, notably his adherence to the political philosophy of Anténor Firmin. Close readings
of select poems, along with journalistic and other sources about Coicou’s political leanings help
document Coicou’s trajectory through literature and politics. Finally, I emphasize that while
Coicou’s death marks the end of certain literary and political era in Haiti, his notions of racial
solidarity and consciousness of African identities would resurface in Haitian literature of the
early twentieth century.
These four poets in these three periods are those whose output is the greatest and whosework is most recognized by professors and researchers in Haiti as being expressive of Haitian
national concerns. The general genre of poetry, the sensibilities of Romanticism, and limits of
chronology (between Boyer’s consolidation of competing governments to the eve of the