Son of a large family, born in 1959 in Jacmel, in southeastern Haiti. At the age of 20, she began teaching mathematics and natural sciences. But shortly thereafter came to power François Duvalier Papa Doc, who dictated a dictatorship that forced Métellus to embark on a foreign route. He had only 75 dollars in his pocket. Based in Paris, he studied medicine and specialized in neurology, specifically in aphasia and language problems caused by brain injuries. And so, before the poetry, having been a therapist in the hospitals around Paris gave him fame in the world. He also graduated in Linguistics from the University of Sorbonne.

As in the case of all Haitian blacks, Métello was called with a clear vestige of slavery. The owners of the plantations robed the African name and gave their slaves what they would have liked; in the case of the poet's ancestors, Métellus. “I carry the name without forgetting where it comes from,” he once said.

He came to the world of literature with the young doctor and writer Claude Mouchard and had as first parents Aimé Cesaire, André Malraux and Maurice Nadeau. He created his first poems in 30 years, in the language he had used most in his life: French. Then he explained many times that he began to write “for a kind of somnambulism”, “I wasn’t too aware of what I was doing, but I had no choice but to go on, I couldn’t stop writing.”

These first poems saw the light in 1969, in the literary magazines Des Lettres Nouvelles of Maurice Nadeau and in the magazines Temps Modernes of Jean-Paul Sartre, among others. Almost ten years later came Au Pipirite Chantant, his famous poem. It was followed by some thirty works, not only poetry, but also plays, essays and novels, “all filled with poetic fiber”.

The poet and physician Metéllus remembered very well his job as a therapist when he picked up the pen. When asked to define what poetry is, “it’s a nerve that keeps the forces of resistance of man firm and alive,” he said on one occasion.

In the last interview, in December 2013, a month before his death, Métellus spoke about the racism that is accentuating in French society. In this sense, the journalist asked him if poetry is a weapon and he answered: “It’s a weapon, but limited: poetry is a knife in front of the kalashnikova.”