Poetic Healing: Rodney Saint-Eloi's 'Jacques Roche, je t'écris cette lettre'

On 10 July 2005 Haitian journalist and poet Jacques Roche was kidnapped in Port-au-Prince. Four days later, his tortured body was found. In 2013 fellow Haitian poet Rodney Saint-Eloi, a close friend of Roche, published a book-length poem, Jacques Roche, je t'ecris cette lettre, in which he explores the many layers of his own grief and the wider ramifications of Roche's death. This article will explore how poetry helps Saint-Eloi understand and process this traumatic experience through an analysis of this moving work.