In Whiteout: How Canada Cancels Blackness, his new and essential collection of essays, George Elliott Clarke exposes the various ways in which the Canadian imagination demonizes, excludes, and oppresses Blackness. Clarke’s range is extraordinary: he canvasses African-Canadian writers who have tracked Black invisibility, highlights the racist bias of true crime writing, reveals the whitewashing of African-Canadian perspectives in universities, and excoriates the political failure to reckon with the tragedy of Africville. 2023.

In his 2018 Pratt Lecture, The Quest for a ‘National’ Nationalism, George Elliott Clarke studies E. J. Pratt’s attempt to become the epic poet of Canada. And while Pratt’s epic poems, such as Brebeuf and His Brethren and Towards the Last Spike, are lofty poetic achievements, the poet is never able to escape his own identity and speak convincingly for all Canadians. Unable to speak for Francophones, Indigenous peoples, and People of Colour, Pratt becomes the epic poet of the establishment, but never truly of the people. 2021.

In Locating Home: The First African-Canadian Novel and Verse Collections, George Elliott Clarke — the pioneering scholar of African-Canadian literature — anthologizes the field’s first collections of poetry and the first novel. Clarke’s powerful introduction illuminates the historical, cultural, and political significance of these groundbreaking works for contemporary readers of Black Canadian authors. 2018.

Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature is a pioneering study of African-Canadian literary creativity, laying the groundwork for future scholarly work in the field. George Elliott Clarke identifies African-Canadian literature's distinguishing characteristics, argues for its relevance to both African Diasporic Black and Canadian Studies, and critiques several of its key creators and texts. 2002.

The latest work from pioneering scholar George Elliott Clarke, Directions Home is the most comprehensive analysis of African-Canadian texts and writers to date. Building on the discoveries of his critically acclaimed Odysseys Home, Clarke passionately analyses the beautiful complexities and haunting conundrums of this important body of literature. 2012.

Border Lines - co-edited by Clarke - presents the writing of 68 important new, or increasingly appreciated, poets from around the English-speaking world. Coming from Canada, Africa, the Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, these men and women write out of a variety of social and cultural backgrounds and literary and oral traditions. 1995.

Mixing prose, poetry, and drama, and including the work of established writers and new voices, writing in English as well as French (in translation here), Eyeing the North Star is a varied and vibrant overview of the recent evolution of African-Canadian Literature. 1997.

Award-winning poet and scholar, George Elliott Clarke edits this pioneer collection of passionate, spiritual, earthy and liberating prose, poetry and song.

The Dalhousie Bicentennial Launch, 2018

FULL POEM

Journal engagements

Atlantic Studies (Routledge).  2020.

International Journal of Canadian Studies.  2019 [twice].

African American Review, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016.

American Review of Canadian Studies.  1996.  2005.

Arab Journal for the Humanities.  2006.

Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English.  2003, 2004, 2006.

BC Studies.  2010.

Callaloo.  1994, 2010 [twice], 2011, 2012.

Canadian Ethnic Studies.  2005.

Canadian Literature.  2004 [twice], 2011.

Cultural Critique.  2015.

English Studies in Canada.  1999.  2004.

Essays on Canadian Writing.  1998, 1999 [thrice], 2002 [thrice], 2003,  2004.

Journal of Canadian Studies.  1996 [twice], 1998, 2002 [twice], 2003, 2007 [thrice].

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada.  2011.

University of Toronto Quarterly.  2005, 2008, 2017.

Guest Editor, African American Review 51.3, Special Issue on African Canadianité. Fall 2018.

Writer-in-residencies

Instructor, “Getting the Word(s) Out! Or How to Make Poetry Speak.”  By Zoom.  Hillside Festival.  Guelph (ON). Thursday, November 11, 18, 25, and December 2 (2021).

“Master Class” Poetry Instructor. Wild Writers Literary Festival, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, ON, November 2, 2019.

“Radical Writing for Social Change,” “History as a Base for Poetry & Essay,” “Music as a Poetic Toll” (with Scott Parsons): Three writing workshops, plus “Authors’ Roundtable.” Prince Edward Island Writers Guild, Wild Threads Writing Symposium, Charlottetown, PEI, August 23 and 24, 2019.

Committees

University of Toronto

Shaftesbury Writer-in-Residence Committee (Victoria College).  2023-24.

English Department Advisory Committee Re: Jack McClelland Writer-in-Residence Appointments.  2023.

English Department Chair’s Advisory Committee Re: Avie Bennett Chair Appointments.  2023-24.

Shaftesbury Writer-in-Residence Committee (Victoria College).  2022-23.

2022-23 MA—CRW Admissions Committee.  Spring 2022.