Fatiman, come and see.The last mapou has fallen.The last giant is conquered.They have done it, zanmi m.Their small hands have crushed life.Look at us in the TV,the angles of our feet,our extended bellies.Look into the camera, tifi.All around us, all our eyes can seeare sugar canes and white spires;man-made pillars of life.Behold! The same hands that broke our backshave come for the earth.Vini m di w.Look how much care andattention they put into slicing openthe land and carving the map.Look here, the zigzag linethat follows up north ends in darkness.Fatiman dear, why are your hands red?
To Be Young on the Eve of the Bois Caiman Ceremony
Sony Ton-Aime
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Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States edited by Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto, & Jeremy S. Hoffman
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John Beale
John Beale
Sony Ton-Aime is a Haitian poet, essayist, translator, and Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. He is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Konbit (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2026), the chapbook, LaWomann (Ironworks Press, 2019), the Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story, and co-founding editor of ID13.
In the U.S., the congressionally mandated Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) report is currently in development, and groups of scientists from all over the country and Caribbean are overseeing the synthesis of published research for regional and topic-specific chapters. Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States is offered as a companion to NCA5, and an additional opportunity to participate in the urgent conversations on environmental justice. Edited by Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows Luisa A. Igloria & Aileen Cassinetto and NCA5 Chapter Lead Dr. Jeremy S. Hoffman, the anthology's 70+ contributors include Union of Concerned Scientists director Erika Spanger and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, with Foreword by Claire Wahmanholm and Afterword by Dr. Sam Illingworth.
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