from is a rose press
Skull-Filled Sun
Paperback
ISBN 978-0-9896245-3-4
(Pocket size, 5″ X 7″)
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In her début short collection of poems, Skull-Filled Sun, Haitian-American poet Valérie Déus evinces a strong voice full of “…jazz riffed, watercolor vignettes that create a gorgeous melange of Kreyol garnished musings…The voice is at once experiencer and witness, revealing multiple perspectives on the roads that all children of the African diaspora must travel” (Keisha-Gaye Anderson). Down the streets of Brooklyn where she grew up or from her current home of Minneapolis, Déus shares honest emotion, strong imagery, and musical language in her poetry, “… with a new and glowing syntax, weaving worlds together, making what seems foreign downright native…” (Danielle Legros Georges). Déus poems embody the life of a second-second-generation Haitian immigrant living in today’s America—less the dream of her parents and more a place of overlapping boundaries, identity performance, and cultural expectations. Readers walk with her on the streets, play with her and her friends, love and hurt alongside this woman making her way, following her own path. “In Skull Filled Sun, innovation and energy bubble up through the language of the night, the language of Haitian mothers and of Brooklyn streets. Brown girls run the city, they run the world, and in this stunning collection, Valerie Deus generously lets us ride along” (Brenda Coultas). From “Bar Hopping,” the first section, to “Bridges,” the second, these thirty-five pages provide poetic pleasure and invaluable insight on every line of every poem.
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Valérie Déus, a Haitian-American poet, English professor, and Film Curator, lives in Minneapolis but has deep New York City roots.
The Streets of Brooklyn
feed off various languages
ki moun-
copper legs seek roots
we orbit unseen religions
visible only to the initiated
unknowable from the line in the middle of the road
still sacred even in the rain
you are ti mafi
you are ti madam
wearing mama’s hair under a headscarf
we move underground
day workers and night laborers
fuel a 24-hour subway running
kote-
face the skull-filled sun and
straighten our godmother’s zanno
these people don’t know us
they don’t know we don’t care what they think
beyond the rings of Flatbush
to the 3rd moon of Haiti
we reinvent our lives
by swallowing the night
a seat by the window
to skin yucca and greetings
mayor neighbors on the periphery
with Nana’s blood sewn into the curb
ki jan-
we rename you
use it covertly
you etranje a stranger
something between
nightmare and applause
we weave our tongues
around recipes
ingredients and spice talk
exchange compliments
©2018 Valérie Déus
Also Available on Amazon!
Valérie Déus’ Website
Poetry by Valérie Déus Online
- The Brooklyn Rail
- How to Write an Earthquake / Comment Écrire et Quoi Écrire
- Aforemnetioned Productions
- Meta/ Phor(e) /Play
- Reading at Burn Unit Coffee Ward (YouTube)
- The BeZine
Valérie Déus in the Media
“I tend to write things and sit down in it for years and really we don’t have the luxury of time.…My motto since my mom passed is—write it then get it into the world.”
—Valérie Déus, quoted in Harriet Blog (The Poetry Foundation)
- Imagination is Power: The Revolutionary Spirit of Valérie Déus, Part 1 Part 2
- Loft to host panel discussions on black women writers
- ‘Grapefruit / Chadek‘ (poem)
- Coffee House Press In the Stacks
- Valérie Déus: Missing New York, Building an Artist’s Life in South Minneapolis
- On the radio: KRSM Project 35 (Minneapolis)