Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies E-ISSN: 2175-8026 [email protected] Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Brasil

Milléo Martins, Maria Lúcia Clarke, George Elliott. Directions Home: Approaches to African- Canadian Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies, núm. 65, julio-diciembre, 2013, pp. 215-220 Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Florianópolis, Brasil

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Como citar este artigo Número completo Sistema de Informação Científica Mais artigos Rede de Revistas Científicas da América Latina, Caribe , Espanha e Portugal Home da revista no Redalyc Projeto acadêmico sem fins lucrativos desenvolvido no âmbito da iniciativa Acesso Aberto REVIEWS/RESENHAS population and its cultural production as a constitutive element” http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175- (Directions Home 4). Resultant from 8026.2013n65p215 Clarke’s long interest in black culture in Canada and extensive archival research in Nova Scotia, Odysseys Clarke, George Elliott. Directions Home includes the discussion of Home: Approaches to African- writings by blacks dating back to Canadian Literature. Toronto: 1785. In doing so, Clarke contradicts University of Toronto Press, the premise that African-Canadian 2012. literature began with the publication of Austin Clarke’s
rst novel in by Maria Lúcia Milléo Martins 1964. Reiterating his critical stand Universidade Federal de Santa in the introduction to Directions Catarina Home , Clarke argues that African- Canadian literature encompasses “the new and the old, the come- African-Canadian writer and from-away and the down-home, the Professor at the University of urban and the rural, the pull of the Toronto, George Elliott Clarke is a regional and the equally irresistible poet, novelist, playwright, librettist, seductions of African- American and critic. “ A noir ‘peau rouge ,’” as he and Afro-Caribbean culture” (4). de
nes himself in the introduction to the book Red , Clarke is e selection of
een essays Africadian 1 with roots in the responds to this inclusive Mi’kma’ki culture of Nova Scotia. character, discussing African- Ten years aer the publication of Canadian literature from diverse Odysseys Home: Mapping African- origins and in dierent modes Canadian Literature , this new of expression. Variety here also critical collection continues to serves to demystify traditional defend the argument that African- concepts of what is or is not Canadian (or Black Canadian) literature. Interested in African- literature cannot be read adequately Canadian literature for what it without considering “the historical is and has been, Clarke observes (or ‘indigenous’) African-Canadian that settler-descended African-

Ilha do Desterro Florianópolis nº 65 p. 215- 227 jul/dez 2013 216 Review/ Resenhas

Canadian cultures have written discourse in Canadian literature. In many community and church the essay, “ A. B. Walker and Anna histories and concludes: “ If we Minerva Henderson: Two Afro- accept such writings as literature , New Brunswick Responses to ‘e we should understand how they Black Atlantic,’” Clarke examines both correspond with and dier the complexity of identity and from the creative writings of later, belonging in regard to African urban-settled immigrants” (9). diaspora and colonial Canada (32). us, Directions Home promotes Beginning with a sheer contrast this dialogic between early and late between the two writers, Walker writings in church histories, slave a black separatist, Henderson, narratives, drama, autobiography, an integrationist, Clarke then poetry, and jazz poetics. Without explores their trajectories and canonical distinctions, Clarke paradoxes in their political views. discusses both recognized African- e production of this early period Canadian writers and others less is yet analyzed in “ Introducing known. a Distinct Genre of African- Canadian Literature: e Church In the initial three essays, Clarke Narrative,” as representative of examines Canadian slave narratives African-Canadian historiography. from the eighteenth century on in a genealogy of discourses that, e fourth essay, “ Afro-Gynocentric despite their marginal position, Darwinism in the Drama of George anticipate debates on slavery Elroy Boyd,” still on Africadian and colonialism. In “‘is is no ground, focuses on two plays by hearsay: Reading the Canadian Boyd acting out the drama of Slaves Narratives,” Clarke explains African-Canadian families related that “North American slavery is to issues of race, class and gender. so profoundly identi
ed with the Clarke notes that “while the plays ‘Great Republic’ that the slave bemoan the absence of strong, self- narratives is eyed, in Canada, as empowered, ‘race’-identi
ed, black an exotic species of Americana” males, they stress the presence of (19). Although recognizing strong-willed, self-empowering, correspondences between African- black females” (59). Black masculinity American slave narratives and is also discussed in the essay colonial Anglo-Canadian writing, that follows, “ Seeing rough Clarke argues for distinctions and Race: Surveillance of Black Males the latter’s merit as foundational in Jessome, Satirizing Black Ilha do Desterro nº 65, p. p. 215- 227, Florianópolis, jul/dez 2013 217

Stereotypes in James.” Examining a the resonance of European ideals reportage by European-Canadian on African-Canadian writers. journalist Phonse Jessome, Clarke In the anthologies comparison, contrasts Jessome’s repetition of Clarke initially observes their old clichés of sexual exploitation similar political agendas in the of white females by black males context of Multiculturalism to with a satirical version by Afro- later examine their dierences. Montreal writer Darius James. e While the prevailing desire in the association of gender, race, and African-Canadian anthology is to representation is also extended be part of a global Pan- Africanism to the sixth essay, “ Raising (“almost oblivious to Canadian Raced and Erased Executions in space”), in the Italian one it is to African-Canadian Literature: Or, be included (not assimilated) in Unearthing Angélique.” A slave the Canadian culture and society. in eighteenth-century Montreal, Questions of location (region Marie-Josèphe Angélique is and nation), and cultures in murdered for having supposedly transit are other points of debate set
re to her mistress’s house and circulating in this segment of destroyed part of the town. Clarke essays. In “ Does Afro-Caribbean- initially speculates on the theme Canadian Literature Exist? In the of crime and punishment, noting Caribbean?(,)” Clarke speculates that in African-Canadian literature on the invisibility of Afro- only a few texts focus on the black Caribbean-Canadian writings in criminal or executed heroes. en, as the very homeland they evoke. As counterpoint to “the white space— common ground between the two the opaque silence—that shrouds nations, he points out a history of Angélique in Eurocentric histories” colonization and decolonization (84), Clarke discusses three versions that should be more explored by of the event by contemporary writers of the two cultures. African-Canadian writers. Still on Caribbean-Canadian Clarke’s interest in the ways textual literature, Clarke discusses H. production and circulation is Nigel omas’s and Althea Prince’s de
ned by ideologies is manifested
ction regarding moral/amoral in the two subsequent essays, codes of behavior in postcolonial the former comparing African- societies, and analyzes the Canadian and Italian-Canadian trajectory of Dionne Brand’s work anthologies, the latter analyzing from early 1970s to 2001. e 218 Review/ Resenhas

latter, “ Locating the Early Brand: States (and its ‘ South’) and east Landing a Voice,” examines a towards Africa,” thus being closer recurrent tension between “a to these other geographies than wish to discard ‘nationalism’ as their own (170). For Clarke, Tyne’s romantic, while simultaneously “region,” is not the Canadian East articulating a romantic pan- Coast and its conventional themes Africanism” (159). More inclined but mass media and mobility. to “locating” Brand in a detailed contextual reading, the essay only e performance poetry by Tyne, briey tackles on the issue of chez d’bi young, and Oni Joseph, voice, outlining the positioning of and Frederick Ward’s jazz-poetry early Dionne Brand and the world discussed at the end of this around her publications. From this collection reveal Clarke’s interest in period, Clarke discusses “Poem of orature . In Odysseys Home , Clarke a Place Once” (1975), establishing quotes anthropologist Lawrence connections with Brand’s later W. Levine who recognizes the work in No Language is Neutral social dimension of this tradition (1990), and A Map to the Door of in black culture. Levine observes No Return (2001). that “through [a black storyteller’s] entire performance the audience In two other essays, locating is also would comment, correct, laugh, prevalent. In “ Repatriating Arthur respond, making the folktale as Nortje,” a South- African poet much of a communal experience with mixed-race background, the as the spiritual or the sermon” proposal is considering his work (11). Clarke who cultivates oral as African-Canadian literature. tradition in his own art contests e merit of his inclusion is not critics who undervalue this only justi
ed for having adopted connection of performance and Canada as his homeland (1967- music with poetry in black culture. 70), but for the importance of He believes that, against all his legacy. Inversely in “Maxime odds, the orality of Negro poetry Tynes: A Sounding and a Hearing,” “always will out, bursting through the argument is positioning the all stiing blandishments and African-Nova Scotian poet as “the suocating erasures, because those un -Maritimes poet.” Clarke explains who choose to speak their verse that for Tynes, “the black people of seek both to face brethren and Atlantic Canada possess an identity sistren blacks and to face down that looks south towards the United (white) racists” ( Directions 189). By Ilha do Desterro nº 65, p. p. 215- 227, Florianópolis, jul/dez 2013 219

evoking the origins of oral tradition, missing a good part of the
lm. Clarke establishes a continuum In a brief comment on himself he extending it to contemporary forms writes: of expression, jazz, dub, ghetto Due to my dancing (i.e., ca- poetry. Here voice occupies a major vorting) among principalities role in its political implications of and jurisdictions, theories and polyphony (dominant languages concepts, I probably appear and variations of demotic). Also, the perilously unprincipled and body becomes language, as in the quixotically unclear. But my photograph of d’bi.young’s on the philosophical exibility and dis- cover of her debut collection, “the cursive dexterity are necessary to poet’s shaved head, somber face, and allow me to light upon a nation naked shoulders [bearing] white- that is shadowy (Canada) and a paint, geometric designs” (181). notion that is nebulous (black- ness). ( Directions 7) In his analysis of Frederick Ward, Clarke proposes to found Here Clarke wittily exposes the “a poetics of jazz literature.” unique character of his irreverent Beginning with the diculty of position, a contemporary version of critics to “read” Ward, Clarke poète ( et critique ) maudit . Ironically observes that “diculty in poetry though he does not remain on is akin to dissonance in jazz” (193). the margin, but literally “dances” From then on, besides a dialogic wherever he pleases. Of course with jazz history and criticism, dance, exibility, or dexterity are Clarke actually gives a sample of not mere result of talent. Directions an applied poetics of jazz poetry in Home proves this in its solid his reading of Ward’s lines. Clarke’s research and original dialogic with discussion of Ward and other less- a plurality of voices. Also, Clarke’s known artists is not only part of ethical project to illuminate “a his politics of inclusion but also nation that is shadowy” or “a notion a response to critical readings that is nebulous” is eectively that either “dissolve into cranky aligned here with his politics of impressionism or bankrupt silence inclusion. is happens along of skanky dismissal” (193). the collection mainly through a genealogy that rescues African- Screening this publication per Canadian literature since its roots se dissociated from Clarke’s to reach just-sprouted leaves. positioning as critic would be 220 Review/ Resenhas

Another important feature of combine his passionate trait Directions Home is interpreting with the meticulous cra of a “blackness” “as if through a prism, virtuoso . Add to all this a re
ned dazzlingly, as a rainbow union of sense of resistance tinged with multifarious cultures and ‘colours’” lavish humor, and you have “loud (10). In this way, Clarke situates George!” May your Directions his book among other Canadian circulate home and elsewhere publications which group diverse and motivate other pilgrimages in authors from dierent periods African-Canadian literature. and cultural backgrounds under the rubrics of “ African Canadian” 1. e term, coined by Clarke, refers or “Black Canadian”. By doing to the black communities of Nova so, these publications both give Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince visibility to black writers and Edward Island, places originally promote a sense of community or occupied by African- American black collectivity. Quoting Bina Toledo slaves and settlers. Freiwald, Clarke recognizes the (Received in 15/11/2013. importance of discourses that Approved in 09/12/2013) carry “the power to eect that shi from ‘ I’ to ‘we’ that is a necessary http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175- condition for the articulation of a 8026.2013n65p220 collectivity” (10).

On two occasions, Clarke has been West-Pavlov, Russell. Temporalities. to UF SC (Universidade Federal New York: Routledge, 2013. ISBN: de Santa Catarina) as visiting 978-0-415-52073-7 professor. Students of the graduate program in English and I had by Marcia Tiemy Morita the opportunity to discuss with Kawamoto him some of issues that compose Universidade Federal de Santa this critical collection. Clarke’s Catarina performance was impressive both for his profound knowledge and art of orature . Reading Clarke in Temporalities is described on his many arts (criticism included) its back cover as a “concise or having the opportunity to listen critical introduction”, but Russell to him, one notes the coherence West-Pavlov´s book actually of his ethics and his ability to presents a lengthy discussion