Open Heart Forgery is a Halifax-based grassroots organization that aims to give voice to Nova Scotia poets and to build a local community of writers and readers who love the written word.

Since its creation in March 2010, Open Heart Forgery has published more than 1700 poems and lyrics by over 450 local writers. Run entirely by volunteers, the organization releases free monthly issues both online and in print, hosts regular open mic events, and now showcases poems from across Nova Scotia and beyond in its digital OHF Abroad project.

Open Heart Forgery celebrates its tenth anniversary with this new anthology collection, featuring works by 93 local writers and a special foreword by Canadian author and former parliamentary poet laureate George Elliott Clarke. All proceeds from sales of the anthology go towards covering costs for the organization.

Georgia Atkin's profile page

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.

George Elliott Clarke's profile page