Early in his youth, Davertige learned
French through the lessons of an elderly Guadeloupian woman, affectionately
known as Grandma Alice, who lived with his family.
At five, the young boy fell from an
exterior staircase of the family home, and was henceforward described by his
family as a child of “delicate health.” A year later, he began at a private
elementary school, Colbert Bonhomme.
At nine the child began to take interest
in drawing and other visual arts, and was encouraged by his family, as long as
these interests did not interfere with his studies. Unable to play with his
classmates, Davertige read French literary texts from the Middle Ages through
the French Revolution, familiarizing himself with the works of Villon, Du
Bellay, and other major authors.
At twelve, although attending secondary
school at Simon Bolivar, the young boy enrolled in the National Center of
Ceramic Education, where he worked with painter and ceramist Tiga, gradually
growing aware of his family myths.
In 1954 Davertige began to frequent the
Foyer of Visual Arts, working in an apprenticeship, under Dieudonne Cedor, and
studying the book The Life of Van Gough
he discovered in the Foyer’s library.
By age 17 Davertige began to write his
first poems and, joining the Communist party, he actively participated in the
student struggle. In 1958 he showed his first art works at the National Society
of Dramatic Art, presenting the painting, “Christ negre.”
In 1959 he published his first poems under
the pseudonym of Davertige, while retaining his name Villard Denis for his art.
During this period he also met poet Roland Morisseau, the two exchanging poems,
and, soon after, he became friends with Rene Philoctète, following a meeting of
the literary group Samba. With poets Serge Legagneur, Anthony Phelps, and
August Thénor, Davertige, Morrisseau and Philoctète, the poets became
associated with a new movement titled Literary Haiti.
A year later Davertige bought the library
of painter Jacques Gabriel, a collection of books that once belonged to the
intellectual painter Roland Dorcely, which included books by Maurice Nadeau,
Michel Leiris, and Magloire Saint-Aude, titles that would further influence the
Literary Haiti group.
After the arrest of his student friend
Jacques Duvieulla, Davertige took refuge at the home of a washerwoman, a friend
of his mentor Cedor, in the Port-au-Prince suburbs. It was there that he
composed his first collection of poems, Idem,
from September 1960 to February 1961. The book was published in Haiti in 1962
by L’Imprimerie Theodor, with a preface by Serge Legagneur in the Literary
Haiti collection. In order to pay for its publication, the poet sold his jeep,
and destroyed a large part of the work to bring down the number of its pages.
During the same years, Davertige lived off
the painter part of his being, Villard Denis, working with the gallerist Issa
El Saleh. And in the year of his poetry publication, he sold his paintings
books he selected from the bookstore named Select and frequented another
bookstore, Le Pleiade.
In 1962, the literary critic Maurice Lub,
vacationing in Paris, shared the works of poets associated with Literary Haiti,
handing a copy of Idem to French poet
Alain Bosquet. Bosquet proclaimed the genius of the author the following year
in Le Monde. The same year, Soviet
critic Eugénie Galpérina, cited the Haiti Literary poets, by omitted Davertige’s
name. In order to rectify the omission, René Philoctète wrote praised Idem in an article in revue Semences.
Perceiving that he needed what he
described as “oxygen,” Davertige left Haiti to travel to New York for a year,
working in the city at Art d’Haiti. The same year, through a mutual friend, the
poet met Alain Bosquet at Carnegie Hall, developing a friendship which led the
French poet to writer another essay on Idem
for the magazine Combat and to
write a preface for the book which was re-released in France.
In October 1965, Davertige moved to Paris,
living in a small hotel in the Latin Quarter, spending a great deal of time
with poets Bosquet, Pierre Emmanuel, and André Laude. In 1967 the poet settled
with Chantal, a woman he had met through his politically leftist activities.
The couple had a daughter, Eleonore in 1968.
Although Davertige continued to meet
regularly with French and fellow-Haitian writers, from Gary King to Gerard
Aubourg, Danien Arty, and Jean-Claude O’Garo, the poet soon begins to fall into
a depression, feeling that he has lost everything in Europe.
During a trip to China in 1968, the poet
began to write a novel of more than 2000 hand-written pages, which he later
burned.
Meeting editor of the Montreal publishing
house, Nouvell Opitque, Herard Jadotte, Davertige was invited to by Jadotte to
come live in that Canadian city. Breaking up with Chantal, Davertige decided to
take the editor up on his offer. From 1976-2002, he withdrew from both his
personas, “The darkness: life realizes itself. No more Villard Denis. Davertige
is in the past. His representative Villard Denis is dead,” he summarizes.
It was not until 1987 that he returned to
Haiti, living for six months with Philoctète, while he returned to painting,
and showing in Port-au-Prince during the Meeting of Latin-American ministers.
In 2003, rewriting most the poems from Idem, he redesigned and reprinted the
book in Montreal. Davertige died in Montreal on July 25, 2004.
BOOKS
OF POETRY
Idem (Port-au-Prince,
Haiti: Impr. Théodore, 1962 / Montréal: Nouvelle Optique, 1983, 2003)
Omabarigore
Omabarigore
the town I created for you
Taking
the sea in my arms
And
the landscape around my head
All
the plants are sated and hold their springtime
On
their stems that the winds stifle
In
the middle of forests that resonate from our senses
Awakened
trees that know our secrets
All
the doors open with the force of your dreams
Each
musician has your senses for an instrument
And
the night a necklace around the dance
For
we make fast thunderstorms
To
the arms of refuse
The
sorrow falls like the walls of Jericho
The
doors open only with the force of your love
Omabarigore
where rings
All
the clocks of love and life
The
map shines like this face that I love
Two
mirrors collect the tears of the past
And
the people of dawn besiege our sight
