Perkins School Welcomes Haitian Poet on MLK Day

The Perkins School for the blind will host Haitian educator and poet Joel Theodat as the guest speaker at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. on Monday, Jan. 17 at 11:30 a.m.

Theodat has seen the devastation left by the earthquake, having accompanied several delegations on fact-finding missions to Haiti during the past year.

Theodat’s poem, “Voices From the Rubble,” examines the plight of Haitians after the devastating earthquake. Translated from Creole, the poem begins:

Can you hear me?
Can you hear my cry?
I don't know if anyone can hear me but
I am beneath the rubble
Can you hear me beneath the rubble?
I am here, I am not dead.

Theodat teaches Haitian Creole to health-care professionals at Harvard University. Previously, he was the executive director of Hospice St. Joseph in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and an instructor at the Haitian Creole Language and Culture Summer Institute for the UMass-Boston. He also served on the Haiti Fund Advisory Council for the Boston Foundation.

The assembly, sponsored by the Diversity Council at Perkins School for the Blind, will focus on the campaign to “build back better” after the earthquake in Haiti and the connection to King’s enduring vision of greater social justice. The event is free and open to the public, and will be held in the Howe Building at Perkins, 175 North Beacon St. in Watertown.

The event will also be a fund-raiser by the Perkins Diversity Council to help rebuild St. Vincent’s School for the blind in Haiti. The school was destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake, which also left upwards of 200,000 Haitians dead and more than a million homeless.

Students at Perkins will also reach out to children at St. Vincent's by sending them hand-made cards. They will be delivered by Perkins President Steven Rothstein, who will travel to Haiti later that week.