29744: Simidor: The passing of Haitian poet and artist Jacques Charlier (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: daniel simidor <danielsimidor@yahoo.com>

Jacques Rey-Charlier: May 4, 1945-December 27, 2006

        The playwright, poet, director, writer and
mixed-media artist Jacques Rey-Charlier died at his
home in Harlem on December 27, 2006.  He was 61 years
old.  Born in Haiti  of the late  historian Etienne
Charlier and the  Montreal-based writer Ghislaine
Charlier,  he had  long suffered  from kidney failure
and, more recently, leukemia.

         Jacques, who settled in New York  in 1965,
was at first attracted  to architecture,  photography
and cinema and for a while pursued those interests at
New York University.  But in the heady days of the
anti-Duvalier era, he and other progressive
collaborators nurtured a passion for theatrical
protests.  With Syto Cavé and Hervé Denis, he founded
the cultural collective Kouidor (literally, "golden
calabash").  Among the noted collaborators of the
troupe were the poet Georges Castera, artist Bernard
Wah, musicians Jean Coulanges and Boulo Valcourt.
> From 1970 to 1975, the troupe performed in France,
Canada, Martinique and Chicago.  In New York City, it
often presented works in French, Creole and English in
various theaters and parks.

          In 1977,  Jacques published La Part Des
Pluies and Le Scapulaire Des Armuriers, two volumes of
 poetry  illustrated by his wife Cécile Corvington and
the artist and poet  Davertige, respectively.  Over
the years he also published a number of  poems in the
Haitian publications Chemins Critiques and Conjonction
as well as in such literary reviews as Po&sie, La
Lettre Internationale, La Main de Singe,  Mot Pour Mot
and Sariphage.  Three of his short stories were
broadcast by Radio France Culture.

        Although he had  sojourned  in France a number
of times before, in 1984 he spent a three-year stint
as artistic director, writer- and artist-in-residence
at the cultural center Moulin D'Andé in Normandy. An
admirer of Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, he
produced a number of  "boites sculptures,"
assemblages which were exhibited in group shows in
Paris and Lilles.  He also had three solo shows in
Limoges, at the Centre D'Art Contemporain in Rouen and
in the Moulin D'Andé.

         Since his return from France in 1987,
Jacques  completed, among other works, a historical
novel, Dodomea, a book of fairytales, Contes du
Sommeil De Caliban and  a  long epic, Voyageurs Sans
Esprit.  Since  then,  he has taken to writing in
English and has diligently  translated a number of his
works from French?including Dodomea and  Contes Du
Soleil De Caliban.  Pigheaded, he turned down several
offers?including from Gallimard-- to have his works
published. For him, it would seem, it was either all
or nothing.

        Meanwhile, he increasingly isolated himself,
first, in his Queens, and  then, Harlem
apartments?reading, listening to jazz, Haitian roots
music, reassembling  his own computer, fine-tuning his
translations, drastically covering his walls with two
murals alluding to Vodou myths and themes from
Dodomea.  A  spurt of  inspiration led him to create
large scale drawings on plywood?among them a recumbent
and flagrantly exhibitionist Gede  figure, and  images
of (Agwe's)  boats, various  models of which he
meticulously constructed from scratch.   He often
reveled in his  early days in the seaport town of
Jeremy.  All in all, he was a cultural warrior,
romantic, proud and unyielding.

         Not one for solemnities, there will be an
informal celebration for him  at his home in Harlem.
A commemoration of  his life and work will be planned
in the next few weeks.  And as he would have wished,
his ashes will be scattered in the Guinaudée River
near Jeremy, Haiti, the historical memory of which he
continually crystalized and reinvented  in his mind
and work.

Andre Juste

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