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George Elliott Clarke (1960-)

Negation


              1      Le nègre negated, meagre, c'est moi:
              2Denigrated, negative, a local
              3Caliban, unlikable and disliked
              4(Slick black bastard -– cannibal -– sucking back
              5Licorice-lusty, fifty-proof whisky),
              6A rusty-pallor provincial, uncouth
              7Mouth spitting lies, vomit-lyrics, musty,
              8Masticated scripture. Her Majesty's
              9Nasty, Nofaskoshan Negro, I mean
            10To go out shining instead of tarnished,
            11To take apart Poetry like a heart.
            12      So my black face must preface your finish,
            13Deface your religion -- unerringly,
            14Niggardly, like some film noir blackguard's.

Notes

3] Caliban: monstrous offspring of a witch, and Prospero's reluctant servant in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

9] Nofaskoshan: Nova-Scotian.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Polestar Book permissions department.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Blue (Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 2001): 13.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2004
Recent editing: 1:2004/7/22*1:2004/7/27

Other poems by George Elliott Clarke

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