By Jasmin Topacio Calderon Shadlow

Haitian American spoken word artist Melissa Lalin Briye Beauvery grew up in Brooklyn.  All 9 tracks on her cd, My Grandmother’s Tongue, are dedicated to her grandmother.  Melissa grew up surrounded by the lilt of Creole. Boldly, she incorporates this  “forbidden language” into her art. Creole was expected to be spoken only in the home, if at all. Yet, many elderly women spoke Creole freely in the streets of Melissa’s childhood community, keeping their culture (and later Melissa) alive.

In My Grandmother’s Tongue, Melissa conjures her grandmother’s life. She writes about the lack of luxuries like “the wedding dress she [her grandmother] never had”  and her working mother’s presence. Melissa recounts that when mother wasn’t around “grann” was there in her absence to breastfeed,  shelter, and love on her.  Melissa recalls how her pride in her grandmother trumped being ridiculed in school.  “Even as I am ridiculed in school, ‘oh you are Haitian? She’s Haitian! Haitian Booty scratcher! She Has HBO, Haitian Body Odor!’ In admiration and honor of her grann, Melissa craved and later carried the smell of “jasmine, basil, and that strong underarm odor.” “You smelled like a hard-working woman, your stench perhaps wasn’t acceptable here. But I only cared to be accepted by you.” Even after her grandmother passed, Melissa clung to their memories like a child to a skirt, whose life depends on it.

 

My Grandmother’s Tongue

In her left bosom near her heart of course,

her words are tightly tucked, where secretions of milk once fell

White, like the pages I anticipate to write on,

White

Like the wedding dress she never had

Like the teeth that was once present

Like her eyes that led me to her in the dark evenings.

Le w pa jwen manman ou tete grann

I wasn’t sure how to find you manman.

But grandma was always there in your absence

Sheltering me

Consoling me with colorful phrases inculcated with your tongue of Africa, and those of the colonizers.

That my peoples still strive to speak fluently, but thick lips won’t allow

But to hear grann say, in the sharpest tone:

Vini la tifi, ou pa tande map rele w, pa ranse ave m non

Was more beautiful than any Shakespeare line, any quote from The Raven

Meant more to me than that her attempted phrases in English and French:

I love you sweetheart, tu sais que je t’aime?

You didn’t have to tell me gran because I knew,

Bel fanm neges

(M renmen w)

M renmen w

More than those words can ever illustrate

Than any kiss can ever demonstrate.

As I watch you in front of your pilon

Pounding the spices of love,

Love smelled like onions, garlic and hot pepper

Felt sticky like lwil pa maskreti

Sounded like your giggle when I speak to you in my thick accent

Rete sa blan di la ?

I wanted to keep you with me grann.

Past the trip to the airport, past the American Airlines flight back to New York, past the frigid energy that greets me after leaving you.

I am so proud

Even as I am ridiculed in school, « oh you are Haitian? She’s Haitian! Haitian Booty scratcher! She Has HBO, Haitian Body Odor! »

I was unfazed,

It could’ve been easy to deny, because my tongue shows no traces of you…

But I couldn’t

I admired you too much grann, I wanted to smell like you, a light jasmine, basil and that strong underarm odor.

Your scent more appealing than any French perfume you received on Christmas,

That you decided not to wear.

You smelled like a hard-working woman, your stench perhaps wasn’t acceptable here.

But I only cared to be accepted by you.

So counting the days until summer, until I could be with you

I waited for the tapes you’d send, recording an hour of love

In your beautiful tongue.

I felt your coarse hands

Saw your beautiful dark skin

Your colorful skirts

Your toothless smile

Your short spiked hair

Descriptions of a goddess…

I miss you grann, now that I am older and you have gone anba dlo

I no longer anticipate the summer.

Insomnia has befriended me.

Instead of counting sheep, I count words until I fall asleep

Your words grann, and those you didn’t teach me

Renmen, mabouya, zel, soley, chaloska, chwal, zono cacao, lwil, grenn, zandolit, lestomak, dyol, toutouni, loray, dife, sayle, lawouze, mouchwa, lamidon, kochon, bouji, lalin, lonbrik…

Until I drift off, meeting you in a dream where I am small child holding on to your carabella skirt as if my life depended on it.