Black Cat and Purple Beemer 

A summer with my father

George elliott clarke remembers austin clarke

Articles on African-Canadian Literature and Culture

“Dream & Trauma: The Indigenous Imprint.”  Foreword.  Indigenous: A Great Lakes Anthology of Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.  Ed. Ron Riekki.  East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.  [Forthcoming]

  “A Tombstone, Not a Foundation.”  Re: Robin Winks’s The Blacks in Canada: A History (1971, 1997).  Yale Canadian Studies.  [Forthcoming]

“Approaching ‘Hammertown’; or, Discovering George & Rue.”  Officers’ Quarterly.  Black History Special Edition.  38 (2021): 40-44.

  “How I Got My Groove On.”  Africanthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets.  Ed. A. Gregory Frankson.  Gatineau: Renaissance Press, 2022.  167-182.

Book Excerpt.  “A Haligonian hick’s first trip to Toronto.”  The Toronto Star.  Saturday, August 21, 2021.  IN3.

“What Spines to Crack, What Leaves to Thumb!  On Uncovering Black North Atlantic History, from Cover to Cover.”  Introduction.  Black Atlantic Canadian History: A Bibliography.  Eds. Donald Wright and Suzanne Morton.  Acadiensis.  50.1 (Spring 2021):  220-222.

Review of Jim Crow Also Lived Here: Structural Racism and Generational Poverty—Growing Up Black in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.  By Leonard Albert Paris. 2020.  Canadian Historical Review.  102.3 (August 2021):  494-495. https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.102.3.br06

“Bring Malcolm X Down Home, to Canada—and to Nova Scotia.”  Afrikan Wisdom: New Voices Talk Black Liberation, Buddhism, and Beyond.  Ed. Valerie Mason-John (Vimalasara).  Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2021.  165-171.

“Finding Beatrice Chancy:  Excursions and Incursions.”  When Words Sing:  Seven Canadian Libretti.  Ed. Julie Salverson.  Toronto:  Canada Playwrights Press, 2021.  16-19. 

“Blacks in Canada:  The History of a Dismissal.”  Introduction.  Blacks in Canada: A History.  By Robin Winks.  Fiftieth Anniversary Edition.  [i.e.,  3rd Edition.]  Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021.  ix-xxii. 

“Remembering Charles Saunders (1946-2020).” Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute.  Halifax (NS).  Posted: March 16, 2021. https://dbdli.ca/2021/03/16/remembering-charles-saunders/

“Homage to Queen Val:  Poems by Valerie Mason-John.”  Laureate’s Pick.  Exile.  43.3 (2020):  74.

“Foreword.”  My Grandmother’s Days.  By Viola Parsons.  1988.  Halifax: Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute, 2020.  9-14.

“On George Elroy Boyd:  Or, Reading plays as social work(s).”  Connection.  3.2 (Fall 2020):  25-27. https://issuu.com/nscsw/docs/connection_fall_202020_webfinal?mc_cid=3b

“The uncharted story of Malcolm X’s influence on Black Canada.”  NOW.  February 14, 2020. https://nowtoronto.com/news/malcolm-x-assassination-canada/

Foreword.  I Am Still Your Negro: An Homage to James Baldwin.  By Valerie Jane Mason-John (a.k.a. Queenie).  Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2020.  IX-XI.

“Whoville?:  Make-believe residents of a displaced community.”  Review of Africville: A Novel by Jeffrey Colvin.  Literary Review of Canada.  28.1 (January-February 2020): 34. https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2020/01/whoville/

“What’s So Funny?”  NOW.  1355.  39.03 (September 26-October 2 2019):  6.  https://nowtoronto.com/news/canada-election-2019-blackface-trudeau-george-elliott-clarke-/

“Green Street, Newport Station, Three Mile Plains.”  Many Lives Mark This Place:  John Hartman Paints Canadian Writers in the Landscapes That Inspire Them, with Reflections by the Writers.  Ed. John Hartman.  Figure 1 Publishing and Nicholas Metivier Gallery and Woodstock Art Gallery:  Vancouver and Toronto and Woodstock (ON), 2019.  104-105, 107.

“To Honour Her Honour.”  Foreword.  Mayann Francis:  An Honourable Life.  By Mayann Francis.  Halifax: Nimbus, 2019.  IX-XIV.

“Who was freed by Emancipation?”  NOW.  August 17, 2019. https://nowtoronto.com/news/emancipation-month-toronto-racism/

Commentary / Foreword.  Black Auntie’s House of Ill Repute.  By James R. Stevens.  Shunia (ON):  James R. Stevens, 2018.  [viii-ix].

Foreword.  C’est Moi.  Liner notes for the film by Howard J. Davis.  www.cestmoifilm.com Toronto: Moving Images Distribution, 2018.  III-IV.

Foreword:  “John ‘Daddy’ Hall:  Cry Freedom, Never the Blues.”  Daddy Hall:  A Biography in 80 Linocuts.  By Tony Miller.  Erin, ON:  The Porcupine’s Quill, 2017.  13-15.

Afterword:  “Honouring—No, Understanding—That Jones Man.”  In Burnley “Rocky” Jones:  Revolutionary, An Autobiography.  By Burnley “Rocky” Jones and James W. St.G. Walker.  Halifax, NS: Fernwood Books, 2016.  261-268.

Foreword:  “Let Us Now Praise Famous Folks (well, um, sort of)…”  In To Greet Yourself Arriving.  By Michael Fraser.  Toronto: Tightrope, 2016.  9-12.

“In Memoriam: Austin Clarke.”   NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1795, 35.42 (June 30-July 6, 2016):  13.

Foreword:  Toward that Elusive Just Society.  Viola Desmond’s Canada:  A History of Blacks and Racial Segregation in the Promised Land.  By Graham Reynolds with Wanda Robson.  Winnipeg, MB:  Fernwood Publishing, 2016.  xiii-xvi.

Liner Notes, dArk mAAt’r, ep by Stefan Christoff.  [Forthcoming]

“Three Mile & Five Mile Plains—Windsor Plains.”  The Times of African Nova Scotians, Volume Two.  Halifax, NS: Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute, 2015.  32-33.

“Malcolm X: A Real Champion of the Oppressed.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1723, 34.22 (February 5-11, 2015): 12.

“The preacher who went to war.”  The Globe and Mail.  [Toronto, ON]  (Saturday, August 2, 2014):  F3.

Statement on Dionne Brand’s Thirsty.  The Globe & Mail.  [Toronto, ON]  (Saturday, June 14, 2014.) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/luminato-2014-toronto-shines-through-these-five-books/article19161484/

“Black History Month: Black Artists Speak Their Minds: George Elliott Clarke.”  [Article on black radio in Toronto.]  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1622, 32.25 (February 21-27, 2013): 18. 

“Exceptional Poetics.”  Introduction.  The Great Black North: Contemporary African Canadian Poetry.  Eds. Valerie Mason-John & Kevan Anthony Cameron.  Calgary: Frontenac House, 2013.  17-21. 

“Black Cat and a Purple Beemer.”  Cycle Canada.  42.3 (March 2012): 32-37. http://www.cyclecanadaweb.com/articles/14601/

Introduction.  The Journey Continues: An Atlantic Canadian Black Experience.  By Craig Marshall Smith.  Dartmouth, NS: Black Green and Red Educational Products & Craig Marshall Smith, 2012.  15.

‘“‘Indigenous Blacks’: An Irreconcilable Identity?”  Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation through the Lens of Cultural Diversity.  Eds. Ashok Mathur, Jonathan Dewar, Mike DeGagne. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2011.  397-406.

“N-word wickedness.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1514, 30.22 (January 27-February 2, 2011): 14.

“Yes, History Made You:  Now, Go Make History!”  Preface.  How the Blacks Created Canada,  By Fil Fraser.  [Calgary, AB]: Dragon Hill Publishing, 2010. 11-14.

“X to King.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1464, 29.24 (February 11-17, 2010): 21, 23.

Foreword.  The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal.  By Afua Cooper.  Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2006.  XI-XVIII.  In Aims and Strategies of Good Writing.  Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2010.  199-204.

“Frederick Ward’s blistering blues.”  ARC Poetry Annual 2010.  Ottawa: Arc Poetry Society, 2009.  17-21.

“Twenty Years of Criticism.”  Kola.  21.1 (Summer 2009).  7-9.

“At 20:  Take Two.”  Kola.  20.2 (Fall 2008).  9-10.

“Plangent Soundings: A Conversation on Poetics, Performance, and Pedagogy.”  With Tara Lee.  Open Letter.  13.7 (Fall 2008):  40-54.

“Editorial 20 Years On.”  Kola.  20.1 (Spring/Nisan 2008): 8-12.

“Let Us Now Consider ‘African-American’ Narratives as (African-) Canadian Literature.”  Introduction.  The Refugee: Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada.  Comp.  Benjamin Drew.  1856.  Toronto: Dundurn, 2008.  10-24.

“Telephone Love: Poetry to Hook Ya Up.”  Introduction.  Telephone Love.  By heronJones.  [Kevin Jones]  Toronto: PoeticSoul, 2008.  i-ii.

“Canada’s ‘invisible minorities’ must look to Obama.”  The Globe and Mail.  [Toronto, ON]  (Friday, May 9, 2008): A23.

“Black History 101:  Our peaceful white supremacy.”  Eye Weekly.  [Toronto, ON]  17.18 (January 31, 2008):  8. 

“Segregation smear.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1351, 27.15 (December 13-19, 2007): 22, 24.

“Diasporic Diamonds.”  Foreword.  Old Friend, We Made This for You.  By Yannick Marshall and Yemi Aganga.  Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2007.  8-10.

Préface.  La pendaison d’Angélique: L’histoire de l’sclavage au Canada et de l’incendie de Montréal.  Par Afua Cooper.  Montréal: Les Éditions de l’homme, 2007.  9-15.  Trans. André Couture.  Translation of Foreword.  The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal.  By Afua Cooper.  Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2006.  XI-XVIII.

“Slaves to the ‘n’ word.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1306, 26.22 (February 1-7, 2007): 24.

“On Reading the Free Verse of a Spiritually Free Man, Currently Incarcerated.”  Introduction.  Blue Cage at Midnight.  By Douglas Gary Freeman.  Toronto: Lyrical Miracle Press, 2007.  3-7.

“Are You Experienced?”  Introduction.  Ghettostocracy.  By Oni the Haitian Sensation.  Toronto: McGilligan Books, 2006.  7.

Introduction.  Who’s Who in Black Canada.  Second Edition.  Comp. Dawn P. Williams.  Toronto: d.p. williams & assoc., 2006.  13-14.

Quote.  “You Had Better be White by Six A.M.”: The African-Canadian Experience in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  By Craig Marshall Smith.  Yarmouth, NS: CMS Publishing, 2006.  98.

“Why Caribana shakes up T.O.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1280, 25.49 (August 3-9, 2006): 14.

“Black History Month—why we need to naturalize it.”  NOW.  [Toronto, ON]  #1257, 25.26 (February 23-March 1, 2006): 17.

Foreword.  The Hanging of Angélique: the Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal.  By Afua Cooper.  Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2006.  XI-XVIII.

“First Person.”  The Guardian.  [London, England]  (December 10, 2005): Family 5.

“Recovering voice.”  The Last Word.  Waterloo: University of Waterloo Magazine.  [Waterloo, ON]  Fall 2005.

“Secret of my killer cousins.”  Scotland on Sunday.  [Edinburgh]  (August 21, 2005).

“A Dramatic Entrance….”  Foreword.  Back Talk: Plays of Black Experience.  By Louise Delisle.  Lockeport, NS: Roseway Publishing, 2005.  7-10.

“Walter Borden’s Tightrope Time, or Voicing the Polyphonous Consciousness.”  Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama.  Ed. Djanet Sears.  Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2000.  473-476.  Reprinted in Tightrope Time: Some Itty Bitty Madness Between Midnight and Dawn.  By Walter Borden.  Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2005.  i-v.

Introduction.  Roam: A Novel in 6 Tripz.  By Vanz Chapman.  Toronto: Gutter Press—Urban Books, 2004.  [3]

Introduction.  Spin.  By Rudyard Fearon.  Toronto: RWF Publishing, 2004.  xiii-xiv.

“The Critique of African-Canadian Literature….”  Editorial.  Journal of Canadian Studies.  38.2 (Spring 2004): 5-7.

“Making the ‘Damn’ Nation the Race’s Salvation: the Politics of George Elroy Boyd’s Consecrated Ground.”  Introduction. Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama, Volume II.  Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2003.  393-6.

“Feeling the Blues Inside the Spirituals: Frederick Ward’s Somebody Somebody’s Returning.”  Introduction.  Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama, Volume II.  Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2003.  283-5.

“Poet, prophet, provocateur.”  Profile of M. NourbeSe Philip.  The Globe and Mail.  [Toronto ON]  June 11, 2002.  R3.

Foreword.  Motion in Poetry.  By Motion [Wendy Braithwaite].  Toronto: The Women’s Press, 2002.

“Visible Enlightenment: Introducing Verna Thomas.”  Foreword.  Invisible Shadows: A Black Woman’s Life in Nova Scotia.  By Verna Thomas.  Halifax NS: Nimbus, 2002.  vi-ix.

Introducing Suzette Mayr.  Introductions: Poets Present Poets.  Ed. Evan Jones.  Markham ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2001.  43-44.

“Introduction.”  Journey: African Canadian History Study Guide.  Eds. Craig M. Smith, Quenta Tynes, and Cecil Wright.  Yarmouth NS: Southwest Nova African Canadian Cultural Awareness Project and Human resources Development Canada, 2000.  5.

“Walter Borden’s Tightrope Time, or Voicing the Polyphonous Consciousness.”  Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama.  Ed. Djanet Sears.  Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2000.  473-476.

“On Charles Saunders, or The Artist as Journalist.”  Introduction.  Black and Bluenose: The Contemporary History of a Community.  By Charles Saunders.  Lawrencetown Beach NS: Pottersfield Press, 1999.  7-9.

"Two responses to Jonathan Kay, 'Explaining the Modern Backlash Against Multiculturalism,' (Policy Options, May 1998)."  Policy Options/Options politiques.  19.7 (September/septembre 1998):  52-54.

"Honouring African-Canadian Geography: Mapping Black Presence in Atlantic Canada."  Borderlines.  45 (December 1997):  35-9.

"No Language Is Neutral: Seizing English for Ourselves."  The Word.  [Toronto]  5.2 (April 1996):  11.

Introduction.  "Africville: The Spirit Lives On."  By Charles R. Saunders.  This Country Canada.  7 (Autumn/Winter 1995):  22-3.

Other Journalism

From April 27-29, 2005, I was a Guest Host for The Current, CBC's Radio Program, in Toronto, Ontario. The nationally broadcast 90 minute radio program featured interviews with Jean Augustine, MP; Olivia Chow, Toronto city councillor; Austin Clarke, novelist; David Divine, professor; Cecil Foster, writer and professor; Lorena Gale, playwright; Rahim Jaffer, MP; Irshad Manji, TV host; and Howard McCurdy, ex-MP.

From October 1988 to February 1989 I wrote a weekly column of commentary on Black community issues for The Daily News, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

From October 1987 to September 1991, I was the executive assistant for media for Dr. Howard D. McCurdy, Ph. D., Member of Parliament, House of Commons, in Ottawa. I was responsible for press releases, constituency issues and correspondence, and production of constituency brochures.

From December 1986 to October 1987, I published and edited The Rap, a monthly, Black community tabloid (circ: 7,000), in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

From September 1985 to August 1986, I worked as a Community Development Worker in the Annapolis Valley for the Black United Front of Nova Scotia. The organizational newsletter which I produced there later became The Rap.

From April 1984 to March 1985, I edited and published the Imprint, a weekly tabloid (circ: 15,000), at the University of Waterloo. 

From June 1982 to April 1983, I was a legislative researcher at the Legislative Library, at Queen's Park (Provincial Parliament) in Toronto, Ontario.

From January 1981 to December 1981, I worked as a technical writer for the Metropolitan Toronto Roads and Traffic Commission, Toronto, Ontario.