A list of charities providing support for emergency efforts in Haiti can be found at wfiu.org.

In the wake of recent earthquakes in Haiti and the subsequent relief efforts, we are dedicating today's program to the victims and survivors of this tragedy by presenting poems by two American writers of Haitian descent.

Nadine Pinède, PhD, is a two-time Indiana Arts Commission grant recipient, an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and an Elizabeth George Foundation Scholar at the Whidbey Writers Workshop. Her writing has appeared in national publications, including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Radcliffe Quarterly, the Matrix Anthology of Literary and Visual Arts, and Soundings Review.

Nadine is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and a first-generation American. A graduate of Harvard University, she was the first Haitian-American to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University, where she received a master's in French and English Literature. Nadine was formerly program coordinator for Grantmakers without Borders, where she led a delegation to Haiti for the 30th anniversary of that nation's largest peasant movement. She works at Indiana University and lives in Bloomington.

Danielle Legros Georges is the author of a book of poems, Maroon, (Curbstone Press, an imprint of Northwestern University Press). Â Her work has appeared in literary journals including Agni, Callaloo, The Caribbean Writer, Black Renaissance Noire, and has been widely anthologized. Â She teaches at Lesley University and lives in Boston.

Danielle's poem "Poem for the Poorest Country In the Western Hemisphere" was recently read on Bill Moyers Journal, click here.

Recommended Reading List in Haitian Literature

[Compiled by Danielle Georges (Lesley University) and Nadine Pinede (Indiana University)]

Poetry Volumes

• Danielle Georges, Maroon
• Félix Morisseau-Leroy, Haitiad and Oddities
• Marilene Phipps, Crossroads and Unholy Water
• Patrick Sylvain, Love, Lust and Loss

Special issues on Haitian culture

(with poetry, prose, drama)

• Callaloo, Volume, 15.2 (spring 1992)
• Callaloo, Volume 15.3 (summer 1992)
• Callaloo, Volume 30.1 (winter 2007)

Anthologies

• Edited by Claudine Michel, Marlene Racine-Toussaint & Florence Bellande-Robertson, Brassage: An Anthology of Poems by Haitian Women
• Edited by Edwidge Danticat, The Butterfly's Way
• Edited by Paul Laraque & Jack Hirschman, Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry

Fiction

• Jacques Stephan Alexis, In the Flicker of an Eyelid; General Sun, My Brother
• Georges Anglade, Haitian Laughter
• Marie Chauvet, Love, Anger, Madness
• Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory; Krik? Krak!; The Farming of Bones; The Dew Breaker
• Rene Depestre, Festival of the Greasy Pole
• Jan J. Dominique, Memoir of an Amnesiac
• Dany Laferriere, Heading South
• Rene Philoctete, Massacre River
• Jacques Roumain, Masters of the Dew
• Lyonel Trouillot, Street of Lost Footsteps

Young adult novels

• Joanne Hyppolite, Seth and Samona
• Jaira Placide, Fresh Girl

Tales/Picturebook

• Diane Wolkstein (compiler), The Magic Orange Tree: and Other Haitian Folktales
• Walter Dean Myers, with paintings by Jacob Lawrence, Toussaint L'ouverture: Â The Fight for Haiti's Freedom