Toronto Lit Up: Canticles III (MMXXII) by George Elliott Clarke
November 24 at 7pm
Join George Elliott Clarke on Thursday, November 24 at 7pm ET to celebrate the release of Canticles III (MMXXII) (Guernica Editions) at Another Story Bookshop! This free Toronto Lit Up event will feature a conversation with George and Motion about the book and its significant themes, followed by a reading and book signing. Refreshments will be served.
In Zanzibar, in 2008, George Elliott Clarke began to write his Canticles, an epic poem treating the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Imperial and colonial conquest, and the resistance to all these evils. That is the subject of Canticles I (MMXVI) and (MMXVII). In Canticles II (MMXIX) and (MMXX), Clarke rewrites significant scriptures from an oral and “African” or “Africadian” perspective. Now, in Canticles III (MMXXII) and (MMXXIII), Clarke shifts focus—from world history and theology — to the specific history and bios associated with the creation of the African (“Africadian”) Baptist Association of Nova Scotia. By so doing he concludes the most remarkable epic ever essayed in Canadian letters — an amalgam of Pound and Walcott — but entirely and inimitably his own.
Toronto Lit Up is a multi-year initiative, started in 2016 by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Toronto Arts Council, to spotlight Toronto writers and empower local artists with career-building opportunities. Between April 2016 and June 2022, Toronto Lit Up has presented 137 events to launch 161 books by 236 Toronto authors. Toronto Lit Up book launches take place throughout the year at venues across the city. They are open to the public and free to attend. Click here for more information.
