“Sing, Get Happy!” was the final concert in AMC’s 2024-2025 season.  We wanted an image to illustrate the title, and created (with the help of an image generator we prompted with data about AMC and the concert) the happy yellow bird we’ve adopted as our mascot.  And because we performed the song “Yellow Bird” at the concert, we’re calling her Choucoune, after the inspiration for the original poem and song, and as a symbol of our ongoing joy in singing together.  

The Story Behind Choucoune

Oswald Durand’s 1883 poem Choucoune, written in Written in Haitian Creole, is a lyrical and culturally rich celebration of the poet’s love and loss for a beautiful woman. The text is steeped in Haitian identity, language, and imagery, offering a nuanced portrayal of beauty, desire, and personal reflection. It gained further cultural weight when Haitian composer Michel Mauléart Monton set it to music in 1893, creating a cherished piece of Haitian heritage.

Choucoune was a real person, Marie Noëlle Bélizaire, born in the Village of La-Plaine-du-Nord, Haiti in 1853.  You can click here to read the whole story behind the person and the poem, but here’s a brief version: 

Marie was strikingly beautiful and was given the nickname Choucoune, possibly derived from the French endearment “petit chou” or “little cabbage.” She left the village and moved to Cap Haïtien, the capital of the Northern Province of Haiti. and established a small restaurant where her customers may have included the poet Durand. They enjoyed a brief time together, but she left the notorious womanizer in search of a more permanent relationship, which, unfortunately, she never found.  She later returned to her home village, where she died in 1924.

Immortalized by the poem and song, later by the English appropriation Yellow Bird (from the Creole poem’s original “ti ouzaine,” derived from French “petit oiseau” or “little bird”), the memory of Choucoune lives on today in Haiti, including the Miss Choucoune International festival, “dedicated to celebrating Haitian women and their rich cultural heritage.”

Click here to read AMC’s program notes for the song Yellow Bird from the concert, including its legacy of appropriation from the original to a popular English language version in the 1950s.