This chapter argues that twenty-first-century poetry, notably by Port-au-Prince-based poets takes up the vexed theorization of contemporary Haitian public life, deploying and recuperating the centuries-old knowledge of the Vodou lwa Papa Loko and his avatars (the butterfly and the wind). The chapter considers poet and writer James Noël’s challenge to readers of contemporary Haitian poetry to grapple with the troubling quotidian realities of present-day Haitian civil society. In particular, I examine the fugacity of what I refer to as Lokoian ethics as a means of, first, advocating for an ethos of the non-predatory through an ecocritical analysis of the butterfly (in contrast with the dragonfly); and, second, decoupling the binary of staying/leaving, debunking the longstanding debate over whether staying or leaving Haiti is ‘better’ for the country, for one’s family, for one’s own future. In particular, the chapter works with the poetry of James Noël and Lyonel Trouillot, putting them into conversation with poetry by Getro Bernabé, Georges Castera, and Ida Faubert.

This chapter examines how black and Asian writers established themselves as active participants in wider print culture in the early twentieth century. As the heart of empire, Britain was home to a range of intellectuals, writers, and journalists who expressed their often diverse and sometimes subversive political perspectives through various outlets, including periodicals such as The Islamic Review. This analysis explores the modes and means by which the Egyptian-British Duse Mohamed Ali, founding editor of the African Times and Orient Review, made inroads into fulfilling his ambition to shift thinking on issues of race and representation through the impact of print culture. The chapter also discusses the Indian Olive Christian Malvery’s photo-journalistic piece The Soul Market (1907), a narrative which provides interesting reflections and representations of the underclasses in London’s East End. Partially echoing what was already a familiar discourse on early twentieth-century reform, Malvery’s work, like Ali’s, reveals the complexity of her cultural and political affiliations and exposes the contradictions underlying her seemingly uncomplicated Anglophile voice and persona.