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Full Product Details

Author:   Sony Ton-Aime
Publisher:   Carnegie-Mellon University Press
Imprint:   Carnegie-Mellon University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 0.80cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.172kg
ISBN:  

9780887487262

ISBN 10:   0887487262
Pages:   96
Publication Date:   19 February 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Available To Order  
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.

Table of Contents

Part I The Seer Sits on the Ground on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Seer Foresees the Following Events on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Boukman Says Goodbye to His Master on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Seer Predicts Boukman’s Death on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Toussaint, in a Ballade, Helped His Master Flee on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx A Mother Sends Her Son Off on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Rain on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx A Mistress in Bed with Her Husband on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Fatiman Contemplates the Knife on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Fatiman’s Parents Chide the Child on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Seer Foresees Frantz Fanon on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Toussaint Justifies Saving His Master on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Death on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Hope on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Birthday on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Pidgin—Nationxx On the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremony God Appearsxx Fatiman Spells Out Her Name to Secure the Pig on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Seer Muses Over Toussaint Louverture on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx To Be Young on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Making Love on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Seer Cannot Say What Happened on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Part II On the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx A Business Lesson on the Day of the Bois Caïmanxx To Be Optimistic in a Dying Worldxx The Circle Closes on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Kinanm vs. Pam on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Attending a Wake on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremony xx In the ’80s the US Destroyed Haiti’s Rice Culture xx The Seer Foresees Jacques Stephen Alexis on the Eve of the Bois Caïmanxx A Mistress in Bed with Her Mistress on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Seer Addresses the Poet on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Inheritancexx History-lessxx Rotten xx Matriphagyxx Aid Staff Would Pay More xx Vanishing Torso xx On the Massacre River Bridge on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx 1994xx Braidedxx Konbitxx To a Son on His Fourteenth Birthdayxx The Charcoal Makerxx Asilexx Icexx Perejil xx Necklacingxx Fear Felt Up North on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx The Good Master Explains Things on the Day of the Bois Caïman Ceremonyxx Part III On the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony, Godxx On the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony xx On the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony, César Vallejo Spokexx The More Things Change on the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony xx The Earth Elegy on the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony xx Praise the Colony Built on the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony xx En Un Clin d’Oeilxx On the Day After the Bois Caïman Ceremony a Baby Becomes a Woman in a City that Becomes a Country then Becomes a Life xx

Reviews

""Sony Ton-Aime's Konbit is a marvel. This collection is so well-conceived that I am tempted to call it one poem. There is such control and still the poems sing. Ton-Aime's language surprises while establishing a familiarity that is nothing less than seduction."" * Percival Everett, author of James, winner of the National Book Award * ""Sony Ton-Amie’s Konbit offers a gathering of voices that, as the Kreyòl word implies, function as a collective in the face of disaster. Centred on the Haitian Revolution, the book retraces the narratives, figures, and dreams that shaped that history, one that echoes over two hundred years later when we speak of resistance and survival. Merging past, present, and future and with its redolent images and cadences, Konbit is an incantatory work."" * Shara McCallum * ""Sony Ton-Aime’s gorgeous lyric sequence, Konbit, describes the events before, during, and after the Bois Caïman ceremony, by poetically rendering everything around the events, as if to posit that the only way to truly say, to confront, is to waterfall around the event so that the accumulation of language ripples to become the thing described. Ton-Aime writes, 'If we must start somewhere, let it be with death. But before that, we will live,' as if to say that death is the center of everything, but between life and life. Out of oppression, war, and colonization, emerge these formally dexterous poems made of beautiful sentences."" * Victoria Chang, author of With My Back to the World and OBIT * “'If we must start somewhere,' Sony Ton-Aime writes in his brilliant debut collection, Konbit, 'let it be with death.' Unable to turn away from the fact of Colonial violence, Ton-Aime's poems mix myth, folklore, and religion in a multi-voiced passion play that dances through languages both inherited and repossessed. This book wields the entire gamut of contemporary form to give witness to some of history's bloodiest moments, stopping time to make room for the enemies of the state: quiet, vulnerability, and love. 'The crack where the light gets in,' he writes, 'is your heart.' That's also the perfect metaphor for how these poems work: finding the crack in the reader's defenses to show them that beauty and violence are rarely, if ever, disconnected."" * P. Scott Cunningham, author of Ya Te Veo *

Author Information

Sony Ton-Aime is a Haitian poet, essayist, translator, and the executive director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. Previously, he served as the Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution. He is the author of the chapbook LaWomann, the Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story, co-author of the Haitian Creole course on Duolingo, and co-founding editor of ID13. His work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Consequence Forum, Poets.org, Idaho Review, Hunger Mountain Review, and Cleveland Review of Books, among others.

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