AT LOBO'S SCHOOL
! “Gad jan listwa pwezi chajeTout sèn teyat tonbe kriyeYon jou mizè ke m’ pap siteYon mwa n’ konnen se sa l’ poteSe mwa Gede mwa Revòlte” (Manno Charlemagne, For Lobo) Allow me to speak to you this November 12th about an old cousin, Karl Marcel Casséus, whom all of Port-au-Prince called Lobo
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 3 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
By Jean Venel Casséus
Ewa !
“Gad jan listwa pwezi chaje
Tout sèn teyat tonbe kriye
Yon jou mizè ke m’ pap site
Yon mwa n’ konnen se sa l’ pote
Se mwa Gede mwa Revòlte” (Manno Charlemagne, For Lobo) Allow me to speak to you this November 12th about an old cousin, Karl Marcel Casséus, whom all of Port-au-Prince called Lobo Dyabavadra. An extraordinary character. One of the greatest Haitian actors and storytellers of the 1980s and 1990s. On November 12, 1997, he chose to make the great crossing. And now I am sure that as a spectator, he is there, somewhere in the wings of heaven, watching us play the great theater of life where he fulfilled his character. Lobo had an inhabited voice. A voice that wasn't content just to speak: it inhabited the word. Where others sought effect, he sought meaning and non-meaning. Where theater aimed to be a mirror, he made it a campfire around which the listener or spectator rediscovered their language, their laughter, and their dignity. His art was reconquered orality, that way of speaking without betraying, of carrying the word like a drum. He understood that speaking a poem isn't just about making the beauty of words resonate, it's about making the truth of a poem heard through them. In the history of Haitian literature, I distinguish three approaches to poetic expression: declamation, diction, and speech. Hervé Denis declaimed the poem, playing on rhythm, measure, and tone. For him, a verse is simultaneously a score, a stage, and an orchestra. Anthony Phelps, for his part, recited the poem, relying on the gravity, texture, and quality of his voice: for him, the poem is a sonic crystal suspended between silence and memory. Lobo, however, spoke the poem as one tells a news item to a friend. While interested in it, he focused neither on the music nor on the perfection of the voice; he wanted the message to get across. For him, the poem was not a jewel to be displayed, but a message to be delivered. And it was this urgency to speak, this tension between speaking and living, that made him an unparalleled storyteller. When Lobo entered the stage, the audience became confidants. He knew how to laugh at misfortune without betraying pain, to speak of death with the simplicity of a brother or sister greeting you. Beneath his jester's guise was a philosopher, a man who understood that humor is the last elegance of despair. In his performance, everything was material for thought, for love, for living or embodying, but never for betrayal: the street, misery, politics, faith. In his exclusively personal madness, everything was an act of lucidity: gesture, silence, word, and woes. Lobo transformed the stage into a platform, speech into a gentle weapon, laughter into benevolent revolt. Lobo's school is that of living speech, of embodied poetry. He did not separate art from lived experience. For him, speaking was continuing to hope. And just like the African griot or the storyteller of the Haitian mornes, he saw in the voice an instrument of memory and resistance. It is in that school that I recognize myself. Not in the artifice of tone, nor in the perfection of rhythm, but in the courage to speak. To speak so that the word survives. To speak so that thought breathes. To speak, because in Haiti, speech remains the last space of freedom. Ewa! Ewa! Ewa!
my cousin, I mention your name, but I do not disturb you. ⸻ Orlando, November 12, 2025
“Gad jan listwa pwezi chaje
Tout sèn teyat tonbe kriye
Yon jou mizè ke m’ pap site
Yon mwa n’ konnen se sa l’ pote
Se mwa Gede mwa Revòlte” (Manno Charlemagne, For Lobo) Allow me to speak to you this November 12th about an old cousin, Karl Marcel Casséus, whom all of Port-au-Prince called Lobo Dyabavadra. An extraordinary character. One of the greatest Haitian actors and storytellers of the 1980s and 1990s. On November 12, 1997, he chose to make the great crossing. And now I am sure that as a spectator, he is there, somewhere in the wings of heaven, watching us play the great theater of life where he fulfilled his character. Lobo had an inhabited voice. A voice that wasn't content just to speak: it inhabited the word. Where others sought effect, he sought meaning and non-meaning. Where theater aimed to be a mirror, he made it a campfire around which the listener or spectator rediscovered their language, their laughter, and their dignity. His art was reconquered orality, that way of speaking without betraying, of carrying the word like a drum. He understood that speaking a poem isn't just about making the beauty of words resonate, it's about making the truth of a poem heard through them. In the history of Haitian literature, I distinguish three approaches to poetic expression: declamation, diction, and speech. Hervé Denis declaimed the poem, playing on rhythm, measure, and tone. For him, a verse is simultaneously a score, a stage, and an orchestra. Anthony Phelps, for his part, recited the poem, relying on the gravity, texture, and quality of his voice: for him, the poem is a sonic crystal suspended between silence and memory. Lobo, however, spoke the poem as one tells a news item to a friend. While interested in it, he focused neither on the music nor on the perfection of the voice; he wanted the message to get across. For him, the poem was not a jewel to be displayed, but a message to be delivered. And it was this urgency to speak, this tension between speaking and living, that made him an unparalleled storyteller. When Lobo entered the stage, the audience became confidants. He knew how to laugh at misfortune without betraying pain, to speak of death with the simplicity of a brother or sister greeting you. Beneath his jester's guise was a philosopher, a man who understood that humor is the last elegance of despair. In his performance, everything was material for thought, for love, for living or embodying, but never for betrayal: the street, misery, politics, faith. In his exclusively personal madness, everything was an act of lucidity: gesture, silence, word, and woes. Lobo transformed the stage into a platform, speech into a gentle weapon, laughter into benevolent revolt. Lobo's school is that of living speech, of embodied poetry. He did not separate art from lived experience. For him, speaking was continuing to hope. And just like the African griot or the storyteller of the Haitian mornes, he saw in the voice an instrument of memory and resistance. It is in that school that I recognize myself. Not in the artifice of tone, nor in the perfection of rhythm, but in the courage to speak. To speak so that the word survives. To speak so that thought breathes. To speak, because in Haiti, speech remains the last space of freedom. Ewa! Ewa! Ewa!
my cousin, I mention your name, but I do not disturb you. ⸻ Orlando, November 12, 2025
