race, poetry and protest: a correspondence between toronto poet laureate george elliot clarke and jesse chase

race, protest and poetry: a correspondence between george elliott clarke and jesse chase

in the chapter of your book ‘directions home’ (toronto university press. 2012) does (afro-) caribbean canadian literature exist? In the caribbean? you reference harold head’s statement towards his white canadian readers, “you share our colonial heritage; your (our) liberation is not yet done”. when i read some of our fellow white canadian poets,more specifically lyric poets and their critics whom, on the one hand i admire technically, i find on the other hand that their content often perpetuates a subconsciously white anglophone privilege that inconsequentially governs what the ‘traditional’ canadian poetic is through a systematic downplay of other poetic genres like dialect poetry, or even language poetry. my question is this: do you find there is a lingering imperialist presence in canadian poetry that may be hindering a liberation towards a greater, more expressive and unified, canadian poetic?

GEC: Your great question addresses the fundamentals of Canadian self-hood: We think we are an egalitarian society: Tim Hortons, Don Cherry, avuncular Stephen Harper, and all that.

But we’re not. We’re a monarchy, and that fact has cultural and psychological consequences.  Pick up any Canadian coin and you’ll find a Latin inscription on the right side of the Sovereign’s head: “D.G. Regina”–or “Dei Gratia Regina”–“By the Grace of God, Queen.” This phrase speaks volumes about what Canada is: An elitist, hierarchical society, where, as opposed to the republican spirit of “E Pluribus Unum” (the American motto), only one person–the Queen– is of any real import, a fact repeated on every coin that the Royal Canadian Mint issues and that the Royal Bank of Canada lends or deposits. I emphasize “Royal” here because it is the first fact of the country. Problematically though, monarchy means “ethnic privilege,” automatically, for, only those of the “right” blood, genealogy, “race,” school, class, religion, etc., may inherit the throne.  This fact orients a society to value privilege, elitism, hierarchy, the “right” people, etc.  Canada is this type of society, but quietly so. So some ethnicities are more valued and privileged than others, as are some “races”: John Porter’s Vertical Mosaic (1965) makes this point clearly. (Doubters need look no further than the Idle-No-More protests to realize that white-Anglo/Franco-settler and subsequent immigrant ‘privilege’ vis-a-vis First Nations is a grievous reality in Canada.)

But Canada’s monarchical/hierarchical/elitist orientation also impacts us intellectually and artistically, not only in terms of socio-political organization. So, even though there have been poets–like Wm Henry Drummond and Robert Service–who emphasized popular poetics (balladry, narrative verse, rhyme), or who reached out to everyday persons in the style of U.S. poet Walt Whitman or Scottish bard Robert Burns, these populist, verse movements and traditions have never had, in English Canada, the cachet of academic-oriented, intellectually “difficult,” and experimental/theory-besotted verse, which is our Establishment poetry. So, when America had Allen Ginsberg, Canada had Irving Layton. Both were Jewish; both poets had books introduced by William Carlos Williams. But Ginsberg spoke to and for marginalized, white middle-class (hipster) youth, while Layton spoke to university students.

Ginsberg attacked “Moloch”; Layton attacked professors and prudes. Simply put, the American poet could appeal to a republican tradition of public representation and mass protest, but Layton had to be content to needle WASP poets and WASP critics. Ginsberg could be a symbol of liberation, but Layton symbolized the libertine. There’s a difference….

Fast forward to today: One reason why “Spoken Word” or “Performance” poets have had difficulty in being accepted as ‘legitimate’ poets in English Canada is because, by and large, they don’t represent the “right kind of people,” and are populist in inclination, and also are, occasionally,not only non-intellectual, but anti-intellectual. In other words, to the gatekeepers of the Canuck Academy and the Canon, these marginalized poets cannot represent “royalty”–as does intellectually elitist verse (whether poets themselves are conscious of this idea), but, rather, only a “royal pain” or “royal nuisance.” They are too loud, too outré, too outlandish, too flamboyant, to be acceptable as representing excellence in poetry.

The short answer to your question is, yes: But it’s not imperialism per se that lingers on in our verse, but rather the inheritance of an ethnically-based ‘ethic’ that only academically oriented/’difficult’ poetry can be considered canonical. Nevertheless, to quote Bob Dylan,

“The times they are a-changin’.”

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:02 PM

that brings us right into something else i wanted to ask you about: the great black north anthology (2013) that you helped with as an adviser. this anthology brings together some of the most renowned living black canadian poets of the page and the stage. i find reading the great black north challenged my own prejudices when it came to what constitutes poetry. on the basis of aesthetics, could you explain what parameters you take into account when considering poetic value? especially when it comes to establishing the newer stage and performance poetics that counter a lot of the craft and tradition of the written word.

Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 20:03:46 -0400

Dear Jesse:

Tonight I write from Harvard U., where I’ll be teaching for the next year. I have a lot of meetings tomorrow, so I’ll be brief tonight.  In Directions Home, there are three essays that take up the aesthetics of ‘performance’: the articles on Maxine Tynes and Frederick Ward deal with the matter tangentially; but the article on Oni and d’bi young TRIES to look at the matter more thoroughly. I do try to elaborate something of a “poetics” grounded in orality and performance. To be (unfortunately) very brief here, I can say that the aesthetics of “Spoken Word” is to highlight the plasticity of the word–in the mouth, in the lungs, in the air/ears. So, for example, Yeats might write, “That is not a country for old men,” and it’s fine, and it ‘sits’ well on the page. But a Spoken Word artist might say, “THAT is NAAAWWWT a CUN-TREE for Ohhhhhhhld men,” and while he or she is saying it, he or she might also deploy the gestures and intonations and facial expressions of an actor.

What the Spoken Word poet knows that the page-poet has forgotten is, POETRY is meant to be performed. In the Western tradition, it descends from Ancient Greek performances of sagas and plays. EVEN IF a Spoken Word poem LOOKS simple–TOO simple–the only way to know its real power is to read it aloud, for oneself.  Eliot said, “No verse is ‘free’ for a poet who wants to do a good job.” I say, “No poem is ‘good’ UNLESS it can be read aloud.”

Before I forget, I should say: The most important thing about the poet-as-reciter is, he or she has an audience who can respond to the reading, even if it is with criticism. The Spoken Word poet is PUSHED by an audience to excel, for whom every word uttered, matters. But the print poet is limited to the responses of editors and readers—and MAY NEVER improve….

Hope this helps!

–GEC

Mon, May 13, 2013 at 11:46 PM, jesse chase wrote:

i fully acknowledge and respect the need to develop a poetics of performance for the black poet. however, as i refer to your statement of the ethnically-based ethic, the development of this poetic is necessary on one front. but on another front i think to myself in response to this racial affirmation — we’re black, so what? what’s next? in the bring da noise chapter you make reference to marshall mcluhan. are you familiar with his predecessor donald theall and book about james joyce and techno-poetics? it’s of a deconstructionist bend in that it asserts that the written word has primacy over the spoken word. my question is this: what do you have to say about the poetic primacy of the spoken word vs. the written word in light of deconstructionism?

word up jesse

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:57:51

Dear Jesse:

I will say, initially, that Imperialism is long-view; and our responses are circumscribed by our attention to here-and-now issues. In other words, while I agree that the printed word has advantages over the performative I would be loathe to argue that ANY discourse imperils the operations of imperialism. Free jazz did not disrupt the Vietnam War; nor did Hip Hop render the Invasion of Iraq impossible. BUT a clear, realist, political speech–those of King, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, etc.–DID make a difference. In Canada, the famous example is “Speak White,” a poem by Michèle Lalonde, which has seldom been printed. It was broadcast, at a sovereigntist rally, in 1968, and attacked the Anglos as “White Rhodesians” who demanded that Quebecois speak “white”–or English.

The power of the word–printed or spoken–is great, but is greatest when the audience is ready to act on a relatively clear statement of purpose–to oppose Power–which also operates, as every deconstructionist knows, in adept and wily LINGUISTIC codes–along with simple application of brute force–to maintain itself. So, 150 years after American slavery, we’re still

talking FAINTLY about reparations. One can make a similar observation about Idle No More. I wish our First Nations brethren and sistren well. But the only way perhaps to win true economic equality and political parity would be through a sustained campaign of protest PLUS the shaming of Canadian politicians before the United Nations and other world bodies. the “message,” printed or spoken, would need to be as clear as are those three words, “Idle No More.”

–GEC

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:28 AM

dear mr. clarke with all due respect sir i am very much speaking of the here and now. the way the creative mind thinks is a most powerful technology, an art that can’t help but expropriate and redistribute imperialist values with all its techno-poetic might.

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 8:40 PM, jesse chase wrote:

we seem to be misunderstanding each other on certain levels. at the base of all my questions and statements i am trying to understand a post-symbolic language by mapping out the epistemological constraints illustrated by the metaphysical realism of afro-judaic symbolism. a universal, hyper-solipsistic program that can then be transposed along race and language [like wayde compton’s pheneticizing but on a strictly psychoanalytical and moral level] hip hop is my prime example of this.

i do believe art can cause social change. and i did understand that you believed this too.

ciao jesse

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:37:42

Dear Jesse Chase:

What I was trying to say earlier IS, ART/LITERATURE is an effective tool for political

change when it is clear enough for an audience to be moved to action. Even so, the power of ART, alone, to bring about long-term political change is circumscribed by the potency of Power itself to re-inscribe its ideological directives. The uncomfortable reality that we RIGHTLY turn away from is, power– or evil–is recalcitrant. It can only be challenged by clear, determined

opposition–and by artists/writers whose political sensibility is clear.

This point is historically true, if terrible to contemplate. Even art that speaks URGENTLY of here and now MUST (?!!) be clear about its agenda IF it is to have political consequence. But ART can be ART for Art’s sake too.

Truly,

GEC

Dear Jesse:

Perhaps the misunderstanding, on my part, is that you are trying to create a new paradigm for black self-hood that rediscovers our inherent mysticism. I’m reminded of Cheik Diop, Yosef ben Jochannin, AND a recent Routledge Press book by Dr. Lassissi Odjo, Between the Lines: Africa in Western Spirituality, Philosophy, and Literary Theory (2012), that draws heavily on Diop, Du Bois, Fanon, etc., to make the point that black writers/writing will NEVER be understood or truly appreciated unless we break away from Eurocentric paradigms for critique, and rediscover NEVER utterly obscured Egyptian and other African-continental belief systems, that people of African heritage still carry with us, in our blood, as it were, even in the diaspora. The argument is compelling, and I feel that it feels similar to your own. In the end, however, it is an appeal to mysticism, which is fine, because even Deconstruction is rooted in mysticism/occultism, as some critics (rightly–in my view) perceive.

We, as Canadians, may not like the history of the last 500 years–slavery, colonialism, segregation, racism–and we should ACT to change it, yes. But we should also recognize that the task of ART is to clarify the facts of oppression,

WHEN it isn’t (simply) to Entertain….

Yours most humbly,

George Elliott Clarke