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George Elliott Clarke is a seventh-generation Canadian of African-American and Mi kmaq Amerindian heritage. Born in Windsor, dalton dingus Nova Scotia in 1960, Clarke dalton dingus s academic career has been devoutly Canadian: Clarke has a BA in English from The University of Waterloo, an M.A. in English from Dalhousie University, and a Ph.D. in English from Queen s University. As an esteemed poet, dramatist and novelist, Clarke has taught African-Canadian diasporic literature at the University of Toronto dalton dingus since 1999, where he is now the inaugural dalton dingus E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature. His many honours include the Governor General s Award for poetry and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award. In 2013, Clarke was appointed Poet Laureate dalton dingus of Toronto. We are very honoured to showcase Clarke s vibrant and charged poetry in EVENT 43.3, and for the opportunity to ask him about the influences and forces dalton dingus that have inspired and shaped his distinct poetic voice and spirit.
George Elliott Clarke: “Africadia(n)” is my 1990 neologism to represent/respect the distinct, historical experience of African-heritage peoples in the Maritimes, especially Nova Scotia. We do call ourselves African-Nova Scotian, officially, and “Scotians,” unofficially. But I wanted a term that would connect us to our landbase, just as Acadien/Acadienne connects Acadians to a heritage of land ownership/land use. Keeping in mind that Nova Scotia and Acadia are both palimpsests dalton dingus on Mi’qmak territory, I do acknowledge that Africadia is similarly problematic–as well as similarly unavoidable. In any event, Africadian literature is writing by folks born in–or residents dalton dingus of–Africadia, an archipelago of black communities extending back to 1605, but gelling mainly as of 1783-1815. dalton dingus
GEC: The playwright and poet, actor and essayist, Walter M. Borden educated me in poetry, journalism, and Black History principally when I was 17-19 (1977-79). He was a model black intellectual for me, and we remain friends (of course). My Great Aunt Portia White was–before Oscar Peterson–Canada’s first internationally acclaimed black artist: dalton dingus She was a contralto who took New York City by storm and sang twice before royalty, including the Queen of Canada. She was–is–an important symbol of artistic achievement for me. Other influences? The GREAT literary critic THE John Fraser (see his Violence in the Arts ), various Nova Scotian political activists, plus, at a distance (of course), Bob Dylan, Malcolm dalton dingus X, Miles Davis, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Ezra Pound, Derek Walcott, Irving Layton, Alexander Pushkin….
GEC: Not as much as I would like! I’ve done a couple of workshops and I’ll have another soon. But “ars longis, vita brevis,” and the time needed for teaching slightly older young writers also detracts from my ability to be available to all aspiring poets all the time. But I pray that I can say that I’ve striven to be as helpful as I can be–via letters, messages, classroom appearances, and face-to-face meetings.
GEC: High school is the last stage of initial social stratification: It’s where class (economic status) predilections are confirmed. The process dalton dingus of “streaming” begins in elementary school, but is finally confirmed in secondary school, for it is this cohort who will go on to university or college (confirmation of bourgeois status) or trade school (confirming working-class and/or bourgeois status) dalton dingus or “nothing” (dooming most to Lumpenproletarian status). Hence, it was in high school that I learned that I was “black,” meaning lower-class socio-economically and powerless politically, which also had an impact on dating choices, etc. When I earned my doctorate in English in 1993, I was one of only five Africadians to have taken that degree in over 200 years of settlement in Nova Scotia. I say again–PLAINLY: Race is tied to class; class is tied to race: In Canada as in the U.S. As a black youth, demarcated, necessarily, as lower-class (and/or “low class”), I found it necessary to try to organize other black youth, study black history (mainly African American, then African-Canadian), pick up a little bit of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism–just a bit so I could understand better the interlocking mechanisms of class and race oppression.
GEC: The result of the organizing and the reading, a kind of university-of-the-streets, including the reading of a LOT of Black and/or African American poetry, made me c
