Canticles is a lyric-styled epic. This second testament--Canticles II (MMXIX) and Canticles II (MMXX)--issues re-readings--revisions, rewrites--of scriptures crucial to the emergent (Anglophone) African Diaspora in the Americas. Canticles II (MMXIX) follows Testament I (also issued in two parts--Canticles I (MMXVI) and Canticles I (MMXVII)) whose subject is History, principally, of slavery and imperialism and liberation and independence. Canticles II, the second part of a trilogy, is properly irreverent where necessary, but never blasphemous. It is scripture become what it always is, really, anyway: Poetry.

George Elliott Clarke is a Canadian poet and playwright. Born in Windsor Plains, Nova Scotia, he has spent much of his career writing about the Black communities of Nova Scotia and served for a time in the African-American Studies department at Duke University. He earned a BA Honours degree in English from the University of Waterloo (1984), an MA in English from Dalhousie University (1989), and a PhD in English from Queenâ??s University (1993). In addition, he has received honorary degrees from Dalhousie University (LLD), the University of New Brunswick (LittD), the University of Alberta (LittD), and the University of Waterloo (LittD). He is currently professor of English at the University of Toronto.

In 2001 he won the Governor Generalâ??s Literary Award for poetry for his book Execution Poems. Clarkeâ??s work largely explores and chronicles the experience and history of the black Canadian community of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that Clarke often refers to as Africadia. Clarkeâ??s Whylah Falls was one of the selected books in the 2002 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by Nalo Hopkinson.

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