Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke
    Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke
    Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke
    Ebook102 pages27 minutes

    Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke

    By George Elliott Clarke

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Blues singer, preacher, cultural critic, exile, Africadian, high modernist, spoken word artist, Canadian poet—these are but some of the voices of George Elliott Clarke. In a selection of Clarke’s best work from his early poetry to his most recent, Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke offers readers an impressive cross-section of those voices. Jon Paul Fiorentino’s introduction focuses on this polyphony, his influences—Derek Walcott, Amiri Baraka, and the canon of literary English from Shakespeare to Yeats—and his “voice throwing,” and shows how the intersections here produce a “troubling” of language. He sketches Clarke’s primary interest in the negotiation of cultural space through adherence to and revision of tradition and on the finding of a vernacular that begins in exile, especially exile in relation to African-Canadian communities.

    In the afterword, Clarke, in an interesting re-spin of Fiorentino’s introduction, writes with patented gusto about how his experiences have contributed to multiple sounds and forms in his work. Decrying any grandiose notions of theory, he presents himself as primarily a songwriter.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilfrid Laurier University Press
    Release dateApr 7, 2011
    ISBN9781554586844
    Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke
    Author

    George Elliott Clarke

    George Elliott Clarke’s books include George & Rue, winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; Execution Poems, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry; and Whylah Falls, winner of the Archibald Lampman Award for poetry and chosen for CBC’s inaugural Canada Reads competition. In 2008, he was appointed to the Order of Canada at the rank of Officer. He was recently the Poet Laureate of Toronto, from 2012 to 2015, and currently teaches at the University of Toronto.

    Read more from George Elliott Clarke

    Related to Blues and Bliss

    Titles in the series (28)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What Makes a Poet Difficult?

      May 28, 2019

      What Makes a Poet Difficult?
      6 min read

    • Article

      What The Thunder Said

      Sep 14, 2022

      ON Margate Sands./I can connect/ Nothing with nothing.’ Thomas Stearns (T. S.) Eliot crafted these short lines that form a part of his fractured epic The Waste Land in October 1921, as he sat in the inauspicious Nayland Rock Shelter (granted Grade II

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Final Walk With Olds

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Final Walk With Olds
      6 min read

    • Article

      Poetic Postage

      Apr 10, 2020

      Poetic Postage
      4 min read

    • Article

      Books Of The Month

      Oct 7, 2022

      By Brian Bilston The poem-a-day format of publishing is ripe for subversion. One suspects the tongue of the “poet laureate of Twitter” is in his cheek when celebrating such wildly various historic occasions as Charles I’s execution, Dylan going elect

      2 min read

    • Article

      George Orwell’s Chilterns

      Jun 1, 2023

      For many writers, walking is an essential part of their writing routine. As science fiction writer Orson Scott Card once observed, ‘It’s worth the time to take an hour’s walk before writing. You may write a bit less for the time spent, but you may fi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Waste Land turns 100

      Oct 19, 2022

      The Waste Land turns 100
      5 min read

    • Article

      THE Heavy

      Jan 19, 2024

      Host: Vic Vela Seasons: Four Episodes: 36 Why we love it: Host Vela, whose final episode for CPR was recorded in August 2023, has a superpower: vulnerability. Now in recovery, Vela doesn’t shy away from sharing the bleakest moments from his 15 years

      3 min read

    • Article

      Marvelous Mutable Marvell

      Mar 31, 2021

      Marvell's own dwindling fame is a beautiful aesthetic pronouncement, a living demonstration of time's winged chariot, and the buzzing of the wings of oblivion forever heard as a distant hum. The post Marvelous Mutable Marvell appeared first on The Mi

      13 min read

    • Article

      Native American Poetry Anthology Vibrates With Powerful Voices

      Sep 16, 2020

      U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo serves as lead editor of this new collection, which showcases a range of poems as vast as the continent.

      3 min read

    • Article

      True Romantic

      Apr 2, 2020

      True Romantic
      3 min read

    • Article

      An Appreciation Of Julia De Burgos, “Farewell In Welfare Island”

      Jan 1, 2022

      It has to be from here,right this instance,my cry into the world. Life was somewhere forgottenand sought refuge in depths of tearsand sorrowsover this vast empire of solitudeand darkness. Where is the voice of freedom,freedom to laugh,to movewithout

      11 min read

    • Article

      Endnotes

      Feb 2, 2023

      8 – Skye Fulcher has made up quite a few stories but has a habit of not showing them to people. Her works include poetry, non-fiction and short stories. She lives in Canterbury, Kent, UK. 10 – Mantz Yorke lives in Manchester, England. He is widely pu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Robert Ellis (1929–2021)

      Mar 3, 2022

      Robert Ellis (1929–2021)
      3 min read

    • Article

      Where Is Poetry Now?

      Aug 15, 2018

      Where Is Poetry Now?
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Blues and Bliss

    4.5/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The use of language, and the emphasis of individual words throughout this volume is absolutely amazing. The poet speaks with a very unique voice, and skillfully weaves together images and feelings to create haunting poems.

    Book preview

    Blues and Bliss - George Elliott Clarke

    Blues and Bliss

    The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke

    Blues and Bliss

    The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke

    Selected

    with an

    introduction by

    Jon Paul Fiorentino

    and an

    afterword by

    George Elliott Clarke

    We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

    Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

    Clarke, George Elliott, 1960–

                    Blues and bliss: the poetry of George Elliott Clarke / selected with

    an introduction by Jon Paul Fiorentino; and an afterword by George Elliott Clarke.

    (Laurier poetry series)

    ISBN 978-1-55458-060-6

    I. Fiorentino, Jon Paul II. Title. III. Series.

    PS8555.L3748B59 2008           C811'.54         C2008-905842-9

    © 2008 Wilfrid Laurier University Press

    Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

    www.wlupress.wlu.ca

    The front cover reproduces a painting titled Ramble (ca. 1953), by William L. Clarke (1935–2005). Cover and text design by P.J. Woodland.

    Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings.

    This book is printed on Ancient Forest Friendly paper (100% post-consumer recycled).

    Printed in Canada

    No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

    Table of Contents

    Foreword, Neil Besner

    Biographical Note

    Introduction, Jon Paul Fiorentino

    Salvation Army Blues

    Halifax Blues

    Hammonds Plains African Baptist Church

    Campbell Road Church

    Watercolour for Negro Expatriates in France

    Look Homeward, Exile

    The Wisdom of Shelley

    The River Pilgrim: A Letter

    Blank Sonnet

    The Symposium

    Rose Vinegar

    Blues for X

    Vision of Justice

    Chancy’s Menu

    Chancy’s Drinking Song

    Beatrice’s Defence

    George & Rue: Pure, Virtuous Killers

    Ballad of a Hanged Man

    Child Hood I

    Child Hood II

    Hard Nails

    Public Enemy

    The Killing

    Trial I

    Trial II

    Avowals

    Negation

    Calculated Offensive

    À Dany Laferrière

    Haligonian Market Cry

    Nu(is)ance

    Onerous Canon

    April 1, 19—

    from Blue Elegies

    I.i

    I.ii

    I.iii

    I.iv

    I.v

    I.vi

    Blues de Malcolm

    May ushers in with lilac

    George & Rue: Coda

    Letter to a Young Poet

    Of Black English, or Pig Iron Latin

    Africadian Experience

    Afterword: Let Us Now Attain Polyphonous Epiphanies, George Elliott Clarke

    Acknowledgements

    Foreword

    At the beginning of the twenty-first century, poetry in Canada—writing and publishing it, reading and thinking about it—finds itself in a strangely conflicted place. We have many strong poets continuing to produce exciting new work, and there is still a small audience for poetry; but increasingly, poetry is becoming a vulnerable art, for reasons that don’t need to be rehearsed.

    But there are things to be done: we need more real engagement with our poets. There needs to be more access to their work in more venues—in classrooms, in the public arena, in the media—and there needs to be more, and more different kinds, of publications that make the wide range of our contemporary poetry more widely available.

    The hope that animates this series from Wilfrid Laurier University Press is that these volumes help to create and sustain the larger readership that contemporary Canadian poetry so richly deserves. Like our fiction writers, our poets are much celebrated abroad; they should just as properly be better known at home.

    Our idea is to ask a critic (sometimes herself a poet) to select thirty-five poems from across a poet’s career; write an engaging, accessible introduction; and have the poet write an afterword. In this way, we think that the usual practice of teaching a poet through eight or twelve poems from an anthology is much improved upon; and readers in and out of classrooms will have more useful, engaging, and comprehensive introductions to a poet’s work. Readers might also come to see more readily, we hope, the connections among, as well as the distances between, the life and the work.

    It was the ending of an Al Purdy poem that gave Margaret Laurence the epigraph for The Diviners: but they had their being once/and left a place to stand on. Our poets still do,

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1