The Mediterranean Floral Games Poem Prize was awarded this year to Diem Pierre for his poem “Haunted Street”, in Paris, France. This competition, which has seen the emergence of many poetic talents, rewards this Haitian author who resumed writing only six months ago.
“I am torn between a feeling of joy, gratitude and pride,” Pierre confides to our editorial staff. “Being a winner of this prestigious competition, which has produced many famous poets, touched me deeply,” he continued.
This first prize is for him a validation of his creative efforts at a high level. “I am completely humbled that my work has been recognized even though I returned to writing about six months ago. This recognition, a first validation of my creative efforts at a high level, is a source of motivation for the rest. I would like to dedicate this prize to ‘My source’. This first prize is also hers.”
The poet evokes his source of inspiration, which he calls ‘My Muse’. “My muse. Just through these words, the source is recognized. I can say that this source inhabits me. The text reinvents, through substitution processes, its absence. At the time of writing the text, a consciousness arose. developed.”
In “Haunted Street”, Pierre makes remarkable use of metonymy. “The substitution figures, and metonymy in particular, seemed to me to be the best method to express this tangle of emotions that he highlights ‘under my hair’. At the time of writing this text, the absence was so present that everything brought me back to the object of desire,” he explains. “Indeed, in the text, each element replaces the other, in a continuity which is one or not; since the whole mental process comes back to the same thing. It’s like being in a labyrinth where all the corners outline the same decor . It is the experience of an obsession. The experience of darkness which presents the meaning of light.
The inner journey depicted in “Haunted Street” is deeply personal. “It is the experience of the absence of ‘the source of inspiration’ which is a fundamental experience. That evening, flooded by its absence, ‘everything became this source’. The haunting at that moment was more than ‘a possession. That evening, ‘I was not possessed, but submerged. I was not in a regular labyrinth, but a spiral’.”
For the future, Pierre has many projects in mind. “I currently have several collections finalized. The idea today consists of publishing these collections. Furthermore, I want to create scenes to share poetry, this literary genre which allows you to have the words for yourself , to sculpt human experiences (personal or otherwise).”
He also plans to develop a website dedicated to poetry. “In the meantime, I am developing a website dedicated to poetry. There you will find poems and educational articles. The site should be put online at the start of the literary year next October.”
The distinction received will certainly influence his poetic career. “This prize already has an influence on my poetic work. It is a responsibility. One of the jury’s remarks sums it up as follows: ‘Your text is not only of high quality, it is a source of various poetic discoveries. You have created new images and a new language to approach an intimate experience…’ Which invites me to continue this quest for new cuts of words, this need to create new syntaxes to say, to tell myself and to tell the world.”
With this recognition, Diem Pierre prepares to explore new literary horizons, strengthened by this validation and encouraged by the perspectives that open up to him.
