Jaden piblik/Public Garden

My Poetry Translation and Recording Featured in a “Sound Walk” at the Boston Public Garden

ECHOES APP

Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States

A collaboration with between Cantabridgian poet Jacques Fleury and Bostonian musician Rachel Devorah Wood Rome, Ph.D.by Jacques Fleury

Boston Public Garden Image C/O Jacques Fleury

I am featured in a “Sound Walk” recording on the Boston Public Garden!

I was commissioned by Berklee College of Music Professor, Dr. Rachel Rome, who discovered me on the Haitian American Artists of Massachusetts Facebook page, to translate and record a poem to her naturalistic electronic musical composition at Berklee recording studios.  The recording is divided into three sections, each having its own sound and intent achieved by dividing the poem into three parts. You can listen to it as part of your meditation practice, whether manually or at the Boston Public Garden itself should you be visiting or live in the Boston area.

The poem was originally written in English  by Dr. Jason Allen Paissant, a professor of Jamaican descent who speaks seven languages. 

It is about the manmade  erosion of our natural wonders and entitled TREENESS. Below is the poem, the translation and link to the public garden recording which you can listen to manually or visit the garden to listen automatically on the app. 

Check it out!

Link to my Haitian Creole translation of the poem Treeness at the Boston public garden, which will be there indefinitely…

You can visit and listen for years to come on your phone by downloading the ECHOES app!

Link to listen to the recording on the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/jadenpiblik

Link to download on Echoes App to listen manually if NOT in Boston or at the Public Garden if you are:

https://explore.echoes.xyz/collections/d859Ek1TXRNh64gz

“All Soundwalks are located at Boston Common and Boston Public Garden. Boston Common and Public Garden are open 

from 6:30 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. each day.

Installation Title: Jaden Piblik/public garden

A diverse collection of plants from around the world live together in the Boston Public Garden, embodying the ideals and contradictions of the United States. Heralded as the “first public botanical garden in the United States,” this historic site reflects a uniquely American paradox: the aspiration for multicultural democratic inclusivity juxtaposed with the tenants of colonialism. Nature is not left to thrive on its own terms but meticulously curated, shaped to conform to Victorian notions of beauty and order. jaden piblik is an electroacoustic soundwalk setting of the Haitian-Cantabrigian poet Jacques Fleury’s Haitian-Creole translation of the English-language poem “Treeness” by Jason Allen-Paisant. The work bridges languages and traditions, resonating with the complex, layered histories embodied in the Public Garden itself.”-qtd. from the Echoes website.

Treeness

By Jason Allen-Paisant

A tapestry of earth suspended

In a forested temple

Beneath the roots

The sheer face of a cliff

Music from a rock gong

Among the snakes

Of the rhododendrons

Trembling at the blackness

Of their skin a human walking

Among the birds

Past the barrier of time

A climb away from land

Where we punish ourselves

Because there are no trees

Because the woodlands

Have been cut down and

Land has no time for itself

If my thoughts can become

Ageless let them travel to a place

Called Infinite from

The words that kill time that kill

Things that kill vines let me lie

In the infinity of a beetle in

Its meshwork in the muscles

That grow from its burrowing a way

From the noises

Of the crowd whose sounds silence

The music of rhododendrons

Who shun the temple of the rock gong

And the sacred hanging tapestry where

The birds’ thoughts echo

Dear tree let me lose

my head and find it in the

Hairs of the birches

In the air where my feet meet

the river that blossoms

From their exposed veins

Treeness

By Jason Allen-Paisant

(Translated to Haitian Creole by Jacques Fleury)

Yon tapi sou latè sispan

Nan yon tanp forè

Anba rasin yo

Fè fas a absoli nan yon falèz

Mizik ki soti nan yon gong wòch

Pami koulèv yo

Nan rododendron yo

Tranble nan nwa a

Nan po yo, yon moun ap mache

Pami zwazo yo

Pase baryè tan an

Yon grenpe lwen tè a

Kote nou pini tèt nou

Paske pa gen pye bwa

Paske rakbwa yo te koupe

Epi tè a pa gen tan pou tèt li

Si panse m ka vin san laj

Kite yo vwayaje nan yon kote

Yo rele Enfini

Soti nan pawòl ki touye tan ki touye

Bagay ki touye pye rezen

kite m kouche nan infini yon skarabe

Nan net li nan misk yo

Ki grandi nan twou li ale

Pou li soti nan bwi yo

Nan foul moun ki fè silans

Mizik la nan rododendron yo

Ki moun ki evite tanp gong wòch la

Ak sakre tapi pandye a

Kote panse zwazo yo fè eko

Chè pye bwa, kite m pèdi tèt mwen

Epi jwenn li nan cheve nan Birches yo

Nan lè a, kote pye m ‘kontre

Larivyè Lefrat la ki fleri

Soti nan venn ekspoze yo

______________________________________________________________

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Spirit of Change Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–

Rachel Devorah Wood Rome
Rachel Devorah Wood Rome is a Boston-based electronic musician, educator, and labor organizer. She values machines for their patience and capacity to remember. She is interested in superhuman prolongation, opaque complexity, the re-signification of archaic tools and materials, and parallels between the physical properties and social meanings of spaces. Her work has received support from the Adrian Piper Foundation (Berlin), EMS (Stockholm), INA/GRM (Paris), the Goethe Institut [DE], MassMoCA [US], the New Museum [US], New Music USA, STEIM (Amsterdam), Swissnex [CH], and Villa Albertine [FR]. It has been released on pan y rosas discos (Chicago); Infrequent Seams (NYC); and Full Spectrum Records (Oakland), published by parallax; Feminist Media Histories; and Ugly Duckling Presse, and has been heard in fourteen countries on four continents performed by/with artists such as Nava Dunkelman, Fred Frith, Forbes Graham, Brad Henkel, Seiyoung Jang, Ava Mendoza, Roscoe Mitchell, Robbie Lee, Lydia Moyer, Ryan Muncy, Liew Niyomkarn, Erin Rogers, and the William Winant Ensemble. She is employed as an Assistant Professor of Electronic Production and Design | Creative Coding at the Berklee College of Music, and Vice President of Full-Time Faculty with MS1140 AFT Massachusetts.

Moon

Looking your light

Feeling the energy of brightness

Moon

My full moon

My wishes are in your hands

Moon

My moon

Crasy maybe they call me

But deep down 

I see my self in

You

Like a magik mirror

As Hercules

As Zeus

Strong enough

To fight with witches

With giants

And dragons

Moon

Beautiful moon

That you are inspiring 

Poets

That you make lovers

Promise  faith to eachother..

Moon

Full moon

Mother of sky

Sister of stars

In my heart

Whispering the 

Little nymphes

Of night

Moon

Full moon

Unchain my past

Free my future

Today

I become

The Master of my path…

Eva Petropoulou Lianou, international poet and official candidate for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize 

Somewhere Between. 

*For John Dorsey. 

The dusk and the blanket of night, 

the temptation and trepidation, 

the aromatic handful of fries  

and the grease stained takeaway carton,

the ageing and the attrition, 

the nostalgia and the cautious optimism – 

we write, 

because it’s either that, or go crazy.

The BB Gun War of 2004. 

The greatest shot 

of the BB gun war 

of 2004 – 

was a complete fluke. 

One that at I’d FIRED 

from the top of the stairs,

at my brother who 

was hiding

under my dad’s chair 

reloading,

in the kitchen 

as our old man 

ate leftover lasagne. 

It sailed through 

the air and tiny square on 

the back of the chair 

to pierce flesh. 

Nobody appreciating 

the chances. 

of the shot connecting 

even if I’d tried, 

especially not my dad,

who’d just been shot 

straight in the arse.

A Memory of Basque Summer Rain. 

Sat at the desk, listening to thunder, 

drinking cheap wine – 

once again, I was the boy that nobody 

owned and I was alone in every sense 

that evening.

Through the window – 

a lightning bolt hit the ground and 

illuminated the tops of the palm trees – 

another storm having rolled in off 

The Bay of Biscay. 

The swing windows tapped against the wall, 

the stiff latch mysteriously undoing itself 

once again that evening – 

which only added to the strange series 

of events that had unfolded in that flat. 

I continued to sit there, waiting on both 

something and nothing, 

swearing that the lightning bolts outside 

were inching ever closer – 

certain that change was coming with them.

Why I Took Down The Dreamcatcher.   

I no longer dream about 

the one who got away, 

or the sinking mud that I’d fall into alone 

in that beautiful forest – 

where I’d eventually go down in awe, 

staring up at a cloudless sky. 

Yet, I see now that those dreams 

were the ones that I truly felt alive – 

with everything else 

feeling like a night shift where life 

passes idly by. 

Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician. He lives in his home town of Bristol, England, but has also lived in London, Brighton and Spain. His second poetry collection The P45 Power Ballad is available from Yellow King Press and his nineteenth chapbook of poetry Until The Autumnal Sundown is forthcoming from Two Key Customs. Some of his poetry has been archived by The National Poetry Library in the UK. He is part English, part Welsh and part wolf. IG: @gwiljamesthomas.

THEN WHEN

Ahmed Miqdad 

Gaza

They are all my brothers and sisters— and yet I am desperate and exhausted, facing my fate, left alone. 

They are billions — a few raise their voices in protest, while the majority stands by, passive, silent, and complicit as I am ethnically cleansed, deliberately slaughtered, and systematically starved to death. 

All the while, the powerful remain almost completely silent, suppressing justice and truth beneath the weight of weaponized lies and propaganda. 

My brothers and sisters are everywhere —like distant stars with fading light, as if long extinguished in the course of history.  

My brothers and sisters in humanity: Be like a tremendous tornado — shake the hearts of those in power and eradicate injustice and inhumanity. 

Do not be like a gentle river, that never floods the occupied land with justice, so that equality and peace may finally grow on that long, violently parched soil. 

Be like an erupting volcano — make the powerful hear your thunderous voice, and make your impact on this earth be felt. 

My dear fellow humans, if you don’t act now — then when?

Unbearable Bearable 

So it began the unbearable bearable

construction on our avenue

November to April

replacement of gas pipes

started with the hushed posting

of no parking signs

Rumbling of diesel engine

air horn sounding

flashing lights

whisky voice on speaker

attention residents

move your cars or they will be towed!

Then … cutting blade grinding, motor

repetitive, a plaintive sound of destruction

staccato of the beep of the backhoe

Cement cutters up and down the avenue

shrill of the cutting blade, grinding of motor

repetitive and then the beep beep beep of the

backhoe backing up scooping up brick mortar

asphalt. Insistent scraping along curb line, dig dig

dig. Scoop up, percussive dump at end of avenue

on and on all day long up and down

Until….

The bucket picks up the pile, bit by bit

howling into the back of the dump truck

once, twice, thrice, multiple times. Trucks

grinding engine, slamming of bed door

over and over through the day, then a

dulcet sound returns until next morning

when the tow truck sounds again…

And again… day after day

Until …

Stacks of pipe placed along curb line

fill with blowing debris and autumn

leaves. Dirt and sand piles appear at the

end the street, small hills atop the

now battered avenue and in winters wind

sand and dirt batter houses and cars. Then

the pipes are placed, lawns dug up for

connection and gas turned off and after 8

hours in the cold of winter, gas turned on.

And so…

The original flyer said there would be a

community meeting and all would be

restored as it was before construction.

Until…

There was no meeting, brick lined gutters

paved over, hack cement jobs replaced

broken sidewalks and curbs, asphalt patches

and pot holes on avenue … and the lawns

left with craters and dirt.

Unbearable bearable it is over.

 g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. He can be found at: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/

tell the truth

drink enough whiskey

and those bleary eyes

will tell the truth

you always wanted

to grow up and be

coltrane but were

never man enough

for the needle

get lost in the rhythm

of the long lost suicidal

dance of cursed lovers

the mirror tells you

all you need to know

alone is your destiny

you know it, just don’t

want to believe it

tough shit boy

genes at the bottom

of the pool don’t get

to be great

you get to clean toilets

pick the vegetables

or bury the dead

don’t worry, you’ll

never have the money

for anything you will

want

————————————————–

mischief

i lurk in the shadows

peek out the front

window to see what

mischief is happening

across the street

youth really is wasted

on the young

another bottle of vodka

for the floor

these are the nights

where you dream

about a bathtub

full of blood

depravity never hit

like this in your 20’s

start taking care of

the dying and watch

all your friends fall

out of love and get

divorced and you’ll

quickly understand

the underside of

a coin

if someone dares

to marry me

they will stumble

upon these poems

and realize anyone

can make a fucking

mistake

———————————————————

dana

you are the first one

in years to make me

feel like there is a

reason to wade

through all this

shit for yet another

day

i count the days

until we can finally

meet

fall in love again

do everything we

wanted for the first

time

set the world on fire

and go live our truth

of course,

being the old man

i don’t have as long

to live as you surely

hope

the beauty of the

urgency of now

—————————————————–

linger

sometimes the pages

will bleed

pain so visceral

that the stains

linger until they

envelop your

soul

religion left you

naked and alone

yet you still had

to pull yourself

up with no

bootstraps

te amo

we were destined

for failure

but never shied

away from giving

a middle finger

to the world

burn the bridges

never look back

nostalgia is only

there to hold you

in place

dare to be

uncomfortable

and embrace

the pain

——————————————————–

the digital void

faceless lovers in

the digital void

my love rests

in these arms

for the final

time

must reboot to

see all the good

stuff

who wants ice

cream

who wants to

see a dead body

let’s go dancing

with a train

i once slept in

a graveyard

hoping to hear

the dead

i believe they

have an app

for that now

insulated and

safe from pain

i guess life has

fucking passed

me by

it was bound

to happen 

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is currently trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He has been widely published over the years, most recently at The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb the Universe Magazine, Misfit Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and Yellow Mama. His new book, to live your dreams, might be unleashed upon the world soon. You can find him most days betting on soccer and baseball. He still has a blog, but rarely has the time to write anything in it. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)