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.

George Elliott Clarke is the inaugural E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. An expert in African-Canadian literature, he published the foundational work in the field, Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature, in 2002. Named a Trudeau Foundation Fellow in 2005, Clarke is also a revered poet, librettist, and novelist. For his collection Execution Poems, he received the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2001. His bestselling poetry-novel, Whylah Falls, is a major text in Canadian literature.

Table of Contents for Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke selected with an introduction by Jon Paul Fiorentino

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 Elliot Clarke

Acknowledgements