Restless flying from Tunisia to Haiti

The phrase restless flying references and comprehends a reading of two poetic lines. They are refrains of different provinces, one Tunisian and one Caribbean, in different tongues, Arabic and French, yet with remarkable harmonic resonance. For reasons of greater linguistic distribution having to do with modern imperial expansion, and a controversy between two well-known Francophone poets about the proper poetic legacy of that expansion, the French is more familiar. It is the opening couplet of the third strophe from Aimé Césaire’s 1955 poem, addressed to the young rising-star Haitian poet, René Depestre, which appeared in its first published version in Présence Africaine under the title, “Réponse à Depestre, poète haïtien. Éléments d’un art poétique.” ¹ marronnerons-les Depestre marronnerons-les comme jadis nous marronnions maîtres à fouet Let us fly away from them Depestre, fly away from them As we already flew from the masters of the whip