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In Fire on the Tongue, Patrick Sylvain evokes and explores the complexities of homeland, identity and belonging. In poems of grave lyrical beauty and power, he carries us from the shores of his native Haiti to New England, confronting questions of colonialism, multilingualism, and what it means to be from somewhere else. Sylvain begins with an island childhood, where religion and language were themselves migrants from a faraway land, “I grew up in the sweltering heat… among imported mannerisms that buckled the freedom of youth” before bringing us into a history steeped in repression and bloodshed, “memories of Columbus unleashing his swords, planting seeds of violence in the midst of tribes.” Sylvain leaves us with much to contemplate about time, place, and home. Is it possible, Sylvain asks, that home is less a location and more an essence we carry with us, “My muse, a broken homeland lodged deep, Flickers in the mind and the spine.”? A question each reader will answer for themselves.
In Fire on the Tongue, Patrick Sylvain evokes and explores the complexities of homeland, identity and belonging. In poems of grave lyrical beauty and power, he carries us from the shores of his native Haiti to New England, confronting questions of colonialism, multilingualism, and what it means to be from somewhere else. Sylvain begins with an island childhood, where religion and language were themselves migrants from a faraway land, “I grew up in the sweltering heat… among imported mannerisms that buckled the freedom of youth” before bringing us into a history steeped in repression and bloodshed, “memories of Columbus unleashing his swords, planting seeds of violence in the midst of tribes.” Sylvain leaves us with much to contemplate about time, place, and home. Is it possible, Sylvain asks, that home is less a location and more an essence we carry with us, “My muse, a broken homeland lodged deep, Flickers in the mind and the spine.”? A question each reader will answer for themselves.
