{"product_id":"workshop-of-silence-poems-paperback","title":"Workshop of Silence: Poems - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJean D'Amérique\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eConor Bracken\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorkshop of Silence\u003c\/i\u003e, a book of poems by the Haitian writer Jean D'Amérique, was published in France by Cheyne éditeur in 2020. Across all of D'Amérique's work, and especially in this third collection, he bridges the political and the personal, the aggrieved and the hopeful, the local and the global. The first three poems of \u003ci\u003eWorkshop\u003c\/i\u003e offer a helpful overture. The first describes where the speaker's poems come from (\"gnaw[ed] nights sprung from guts\"); the second imagines a world where tenderness alone can pay for groceries; and the third laments the inattention of \"developed nations\" toward places like Aleppo and Gaza, which are \"married by force to the evening of bones.\" Hope and horror, impatience and dreamy languor trade places throughout the book, as D'Amérique asks how poetry can be made of and resist silence, and how poems can be products of and inspirations toward hope and resistance even in the face of overwhelming, and sometimes violent, indifference. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Though D'Amérique's poems grow out of soils strewn with stones and splotched with blood, they also grow out of play, one of the more daring and dangerous modes there is (\"being happy is worth the price\" he says in \"worth the price\"). Produced in a bilingual edition, with a side-by-side translation by Conor Bracken as well as a critical introduction, \u003ci\u003eWorkshop of Silence\u003c\/i\u003e preserves and approximates this spirit of play and scrutiny so that the sound of the translation bears as much semantic heft as the signifying content of the words. This leads, oftentimes, to choices that may seem odd or tangential, but ultimately highlight D'Amérique's experimentation with the French language in and on poetic form--the puns, the intricate play of assonance and consonance, the rhymes and kennings, the lineation and inversions. These all serve to recalibrate a reader's relationship with the language he is writing in, one that has been used for centuries to subjugate people throughout the Global South. The more we recognize language as a mighty and strange substance that can be manipulated to do weird things and to effect arbitrary outcomes, the more we can both revel in its potential and question what it has led us to take for granted.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJean D'Amérique\u003c\/b\u003e (b. 1994 in Côte-de-Fer, Haiti) is a poet, playwright, and novelist. He splits his time between Paris, Brussels, and Port-au-Prince. He has published several collections of poetry: \u003ci\u003ePetite fleur du ghetto\u003c\/i\u003e (Atelier Jeudi Soir), recipient of a special mention from the Prix René Philoctète; \u003ci\u003eNul chemin dans la peau que saignante étreinte\u003c\/i\u003e (Cheyne), Prix de Poésie de la Vocation; \u003ci\u003eAtelier du silence\u003c\/i\u003e (Cheyne); and \u003ci\u003eRhapsodie rouge \u003c\/i\u003e(Cheyne). Author of several plays, he has received the Prix Jean-Jacques Lerrant des Journées de Lyon des Auteurs de Théâtre for \u003ci\u003eCathédrale des cochons\u003c\/i\u003e (Éditions Théâtrales) and the 2021 Prix RFI Théâtre for \u003ci\u003eOpéra poussière\u003c\/i\u003e. His first novel, \u003ci\u003eSoleil à coudre\u003c\/i\u003e, was published by Actes Sud and in English translation by Other Press. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eConor Bracken\u003c\/b\u003e (b. 1987 in Boston, USA) is the author of \u003ci\u003eHenry Kissinger, Mon Amour\u003c\/i\u003e (Bull City Press) and \u003ci\u003eThe Enemy of My Enemy Is Me\u003c\/i\u003e (Diode Editions). He is also the translator of Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine's \u003ci\u003eScorpionic Sun\u003c\/i\u003e (CSU Poetry Center) and Jean D'Amérique's \u003ci\u003eNo Way in the Skin without This Bloody Embrace\u003c\/i\u003e (Ugly Duckling Presse), which was a finalist for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. His work has received support from the Community of Writers, Bread Loaf, the Frost Place, Inprint, Cornell's Institute for Comparative Modernities, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He lives in Ohio, where he is an assistant professor of liberal arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art.\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 110\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e July 30, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52731086176563,"sku":"9780826507792","price":39.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/dy53VWquxD9780826507792.webp?v=1763848648","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/workshop-of-silence-poems-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}