More Book Blurbs on Price-Mars Biography

Dr. Celucien Joseph Uncategorized

I’m thankful for these additional editorial reviews/blurbs to my upcoming biography on Jean Price-Mars; the book will be released in less than two months by Vanderbilt University Press.

“Celucien L. Joseph provides an impressive analysis of Jean Price-Mars’s ideas and writings by engaging critically with their contributions to debates on race, religion, Vodou, feminism, and Pan-Africanism. In the process, he reveals the rich and nuanced and yet neglected scholarship of one of Haiti’s most important intellectual figures.”
―Robert Fatton Jr., author of The Guise of Exceptionalism: Unmasking the National Narratives of Haiti and the United States

“Among the most prolific Haitian studies scholars of our generation, Celucien Joseph has done it again with For the Sake of Black People and the Common Good. In this gripping biography, Joseph brilliantly restores Jean Price-Mars to his rightful place as one of the African diaspora’s most dynamic intellectuals, bridging the Haitian Renaissance, Pan-Africanism, and global Black thought. Methodologically rich and impeccably researched, Joseph’s work masterfully illuminates Price-Mars’s multifaceted legacy―from his groundbreaking ethnographic defense of Vodou to his feminist sensibilities, anti-imperialist leadership, and enduring vision of humanistic solidarity. Joseph writes with analytical rigor, historical clarity, and a profound reverence for the Diasporic Black intellectual tradition.”
―Leslie M. Alexander, author of Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States

“A powerful biography of one of Haiti’s most important twentieth-century intellectuals. Joseph gives readers a monument to Jean Price-Mars that does justice to his complexity as a thinker and humanist, and to his place in Black diasporic thought.”
―Chelsea Stieber, author of Haiti’s Paper War: Post-Independence Writing, Civil War, and the Making of the Republic, 1804–1954

“This is a monumental and much-needed intellectual biography that will stand as a major contribution to Haitian studies and Black Atlantic thought.”
―Linsey Sainte-Claire, assistant professor of Francophone studies at Rice University

https://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/9780826500601/for-the-sake-of-black-people-and-the-common-good/

Book Details
Book Details

“Commemorating the 150th anniversary of Jean Price-Mars’ birth”

Dr. Celucien Joseph Uncategorized

“Commemorating the 150th anniversary of Jean Price-Mars’ birth”

I am pleased to share that I have been invited by the Haitian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO (CNHCU), in partnership with the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP) and the National Agency for Higher Education and Scientific Research (ANESRS), to participate as a speaker in the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Jean Price-Mars’s birth.

The commemoration will take place on October 30, 2026, in Port-au-Prince, under the theme:

“Ainsi parla l’oncle”: mémoire, identité et fierté nationale.

I will be speaking in Haitian Creole on:

“Jean Price-Mars et la naissance d’un nouveau peuple : transformation intellectuelle, internationalisme noir et bien commun”

“Jean Price-Mars and the birth of a new People: Intellectual Transformation, Black Internationalism, and the Common Good”

My presentation will draw from my forthcoming book, “For the Sake of Black People and the Common Good: A Biography of Jean Price-Mars,” forthcoming from Vanderbilt University Press on December 15, 2026.

I am grateful for the invitation and for the opportunity to reflect on the life, thought, and enduring vision of one of Haiti’s most important intellectuals.

The book is now available for information and advance ordering through Vanderbilt University Press:

Book Details

JeanPriceMars #Haiti #HaitianStudies #PanAfricanism

“The Night I Touched Your Body”

Dr. Celucien Joseph Bodily dignity, Desire, False romance, Loss, love, Lust, Pain, Peace, Poetry, Sacredness, The night

“The Night I Touched Your Body”

Yes, I do love the scent of your body.
I admire how you tend to it
with the gentle hand of a craftsman,
the way you adorn it with sweet aroma,
knitting it with the power of your words,
leaving a man trembling before burning passion.

Yes, I love the curves of your body,
the proximity that awakens
a consuming desire within me,
the shape that holds my vision,
fixated on you,
devoted to an endless attachment.

Yes, I love the movements it guides
when no one is watching,
the hidden emotions it betrays,
the love language of touch
it awakens in the secrecy
of a romance that carries its own wounds.

But I know that your body
is the memory of many untold stories,
has survived the assaults of brutal hands,
the repository of unwanted touches,
and the weight of unfulfilled promises
that could not restore its dignity.

It has been used
because of its natural attraction,
abused because it was taken for granted,
carrying the scars of old lovers,
the weight of their breaths,
the wounds of their false promises,
the shame of memories
you once had to hide:
memories carefully selected
before you dared to unveil them.

Yet when I met you,
I did not see your body
as a lost monument.
It became
the temple of my tomorrow,
a resting place
that healed a wounded heart,
making me believe
that loving you is possible.

Today, I want to affirm
the sacredness it still carries,
the strength of its dignity,
to restore the life
that desire once awakened within it.

I want to lose myself
in the magical breath
that rises from you,
in the quiet mystery
of your presence,
and let the weight of your body
carry life,
breathing restoration
into a hopeless love,
beyond the borders of this moment,
across distant shores,
where love has not yet learned
to wound what it touches.

“The Burden of an Endless Love”

Dr. Celucien Joseph Endless love, Grieving, Poetry, Soul of love

“The Burden of an Endless Love”

When you tell me
you feel yourself becoming someone else
just to keep me,
my heart wants to understand
what you’ve been carrying in silence,
what you have kept deep
in the chambers of your heart,
what remains hidden
in the dark moments of your soul.

Is it something I’ve asked of you
within our intimacy,
or something deeper:
somewhere in our relationship
where you’ve felt you needed to change?

Have you found yourself
reshaping pieces of who you are
to meet my expectations,
or doing things that don’t truly feel like you
because a quiet fear whispers,

If I stop,
will he lose interest in me?
Will his heart still cling to my soul?
And when you speak of becoming someone else,
I want to ask you gently:

Does any part of that feeling
come from the way I craft words in ink,
like a poet,
or the way I perform behind
a smiling mask?
I hope that isn’t
what I have become.

I’m not asking to put you on trial.
I’m asking because I want to understand
the fear you have been carrying
and meet you there with honesty.

I want a love
where neither of us has to disappear
to make the other stay.
Because I never want loving me
to cost you pieces of yourself.

I want the woman you are
when nothing needs to be proven,
when nothing needs to be performed,
when you can simply breathe
and know you are enough.

I want you,
the woman you choose to become,
the character you write for yourself,
not one written with the poet’s unmeasured words,
nor one imagined by a careless heart.

I want to know
who you are
when you no longer have to become
someone else:
someone who divides
the connection of our souls.

I want to know
the woman who remains
when the performance is over,
when the mask falls away,
when there is nothing left to prove
and no one left to please
but yourself.

And if I am honest,
perhaps I need to know
who I am, too.

I don’t want to know you
as an experiment.
I want you,
not a version of you
born from the fear
that I might leave.

“The Mask of Your Smile”

Dr. Celucien Joseph Deception, Fake Love, Poetry

“The Mask of Your Smile”

I was wrong
not to listen to my intuition
when I was with you.

I wanted to trust you.
I wanted a future for us,
a future with you.

But you hid behind a mask,
and your smile,
your affection,
were never truly mine.

When I thought I had you,
when I believed your heart
had given itself to me,
I was deceiving myself,
and I was disappointed.

You waited so long
to reveal your true self to me.
Your heart was never surrendered.

I was patient,
hoping you would change,
hoping the person
I thought you were
was not truly you.

But when I finally discovered
who you were,
I had already surrendered
my passion,
my emotions,
my vulnerability to you.

You were never walking
this journey with me.
I was by myself,
all alone,
lost in a love
that was never mine,
lost in emotions
that were never exchanged,
lost in a future
that will never be.

A good book was reviewed!

Dr. Celucien Joseph Uncategorized

I was pleased to write a review of an extremely important book in Haitian Revolutionary Studies scholarship. My review has been published in the Journal of Haitian Studies (32.1 issue).

Crystal Eddins, “Rituals, Runaways, and the Haitian Revolution: Collective Action in the African Diaspora” (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Let me know what you think!

https://www.haitianstudies.org/topics/journal-of-haitian-studies/journal-of-haitian-studies-issues/

“The Covenant of Love”

Dr. Celucien Joseph Caring, Poetry, Daily Devotion, Amour, Loss, Anguish, Grieving, love, Long Distance lovers

“The Covenant of Love”

When you stop chasing me,
your silence becomes louder than your voice.

You think of me in the moment
when your heart says no to its own passion.
I dream of you whenever you appear in my imagination.

Will you let go of your passion
when I become an unavoidable presence?
Will you call my name, even when your heart no longer wants to hear it?

I will come near you,
just to make sure you see my smile one last time.
I will feel your skin,
even if it no longer invites the warmth of mine.

Letting you go was never what I wanted.
Separating from you was never a voluntary decision.

Yet I am still here,
longing to return to your home.
I am still near,
ready to recommit myself
to your unending grace.

Will you let me?

I will make you one promise:

this time,
I will restore what was broken,
renew the covenant we did not honor,
and dry every single tear.