The poems in George Elliott Clarke’s White riff on that colour’s cultural and poetic properties, joining Blue, Black, Red and Gold as the fifth volume in his long-running series of ‘colouring’ books. This substantial collection moves easily from topical poems written when Clarke was Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate through to the lush love poems, tributes and cinematic reflections on identity, history and place. While often pivoting on larger cultural subjects and stories–the deadly explosion at lake Lac-Mégantic, the global pandemic, or the insidious persistence of systemic injustice–at their core Clarke’s poems are unfailingly intimate, animated by great empathy and a passion for connection. This collection exclaims, over and over again: “Lookit!”

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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