The 2025 edition of Bwa Kayiman creates a lineage with the work of poet, thinker, and community organizer Monchoachi, whose 2007–2009 Lakouzémi project encompassed a magazine as well as a yearly series of convenings in Sentann, Martinique. Bwa Kayiman—Lakouzémi echoes the structure and spirit of those convenings–which combined poetry, discourse, dance, music, theatre, art, and gastronomy, among other modes of expression–and took place across three historically significant dates, including 14 August, the date of the ceremony at Bwa Kayiman that heralded the Haitian Revolution in 1791.

On the opening  evening of Bwa Kayiman—Lakouzémi, the audience is invited to participate in the re-setting of HKW’s Angie Stardust Foyer via the performative logic of a lakou. Central to this year’s festival, the lakou is a model of cohabitation organized around a shared small plot of land, in which communion and spirituality are materialized through everyday practice. Plidetwal [rain of stars]—Enacting Lakouzémi, a Poetic Assembly particularly invites contributors to engage with the relations enlivened and revealed by language, especially Creole, offering lyrical reflections on the the burdens inherited from colonial and imperial regimes while also exploring how to (re-)gain sovereignty. Those taking part use poetry to weave together voices across geographies and generations. Évelyne Trouillot reads from Plidetwal (2005) and Par la fissure de mes mots (2014), opening up a conversation with Haiti’s history, land, sea, and soul. Lyonel Trouillot recites from the anthology C’est avec main qu’on fait chansons (2015), contrasting the realities of violence, suffering, and injustice with desires for peace and beauty. Jean D'Amérique’s In the Red Flow (2023) is a visceral cry for life, while Ken Bugul’s words journey through questions of migration, identity, and resistance. 

Afterwards, the audience is welcomed to Slim Soledad’s VIBRATIONS, TRANSLATIONS (2023), the performance that concludes the evening.