Execution Poems: The Black Acadian Tragedy of George And Rue

by George Elliott Clarke

Gaspereau Press' best-selling title, Execution Poems, is George Elliott Clarke's complex lament for his late cousins, George and Rue – two Black men who were hanged for the murder of a taxi driver. After the overwhelming interest generated by the original limited letterpress edition of Execution Poems, Gaspereau Press released this trade edition which went on to win Canada's highest literary honour in 2001. The jurors of the Governor General's Literary Award called this book "raging, gristly, public — and unflinchingly beautiful," and remarked on Clarke's "explosive, original language."

In 1949, George and Rufus Hamilton were hanged for the murder of a taxi driver in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Fifty years later, Clarke has written, in his abundant style, a series of poems that embody both damnation and redemption, offering convoluted triumphs alongside tragedy and blurring the line between perpetrator and victim. What Clarke presents in Execution Poems is uncomfortable. He reminds us of racism and poverty; of their brutal, tragic results. He reminds us of society's vengefulness. He blurs the line between the perpetrator and the victim — a line we'd prefer remain simple and clear. At the heart of it, Clarke is frustrating the notion that society deals any better with these issues today than it did in the 1940s.

Genres: Poetry, Canada, History, Canadian Literature, Adult

44 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

A seventh-generation Nova Scotian, George Elliott Clarke was born in 1960 in Windsor Plans, Nova Scotia. He is known as a poet, as well as for his two-volume anthology of Black Writing from Nova Scotia, Fire in the Water. Volume One contains spirituals, poety sermons, and accounts from 1789 to the mid-twentieth century; Volume Two collects the work of the Black Cultural Renaissance in Nova Scotia, which, in Clarke's words, "speaks to people everywhere about overcoming hardships and liberating the spirit." Currently on faculty at Duke University, he is now writing both a play and an opera on slavery in Nova Scotia, a reformulation of Shelley's The Cenci. He has won many awards including the 1981 Prize for Adult Poetry from the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, he was the 1983 first runner-up for the Bliss Carman Award for Poetry at the Banff Centre School of Arts and 1991 winner of the Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry from the Ottawa Independent Writers.

Books: Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues (Pottersfield, 1983); Whylah Falls (Polestar, 1990, 2000); Provencal Songs (Magnum Book Store, 1993); Lush Dreams, Blue Exile: Fugitive Poems, 1978-1993 (Pottersfield, 1994); Provencal Songs II (Above/ground, 1997); Whylah Falls: The Play (Playwrights Canada, 1999, 2000); Beatrice Chancy (Polstar Books, 1999); Gold Indigoes (Carolina Wren, 2000); Execution Poems (Gaspereau, 2001); Blue (Raincoat, 2001); Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature (UofT Press, 2002)

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOOHOO GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE!!!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-sc...

Childhood II

Rue: I craved blue shoes, a yellow suit, and a green shirt - and jackets sewn from the torn-off, leather covers of books.
i wanted to don jackets emblazoned with Eugene Onegin, Claudine at School, Sonnets from the Portuguese, The Three Musketeers -
all the works of Pushkin, Colette, E.B. Browning, and Alexandre Dumas -
all those secretly Negro authors.

Instead, I witnessed all this:

A boy's right arm stuck to a desk with scissors; a father knifed in the gut while shaking hands with a buddy; two Christians splashed with gasoline and set ablaze in a church; a harlot garotted in her bath; a bootlegger shot through the eye in a liquor store; a banker brained in a vault; two artists thrown into the Gaspereau River with their hands tied behind their backs; a pimp machine-gunned to bits outside a school; a divine getting his throat slit; a poet axed in the back of the neck; a Tory buried alive in cement; two diabetics fed cyanide secreted in chocolates; a lawyer decapitated in his office.

Everywhere I saw a Crimea of crime, calamities of houses rigged from tarpaper and rape, windows blinded with newsprint or burlap sacks. I could only start the stove with sparks and fear, watch yellow terror eating
yesterday's bad news.

A poor-quality poet crafting hoodlum testimony,
my watery storytelling's cut with the dark rum of curses.

This is how history darkens against its medium.


****************************************
and that, my friends, is george elliott clarke. i always review his books with his own words, because it is easier to show how marvelous he is than to describe it in my own inarticulate way. this is a book i have wanted for a really long time: it is a poetry cycle based on the same source material as his only novel, george and rue. it covers the story of two of his cousins, hung for the murder of a white cabdriver, ten years before he himself was born. these poems describe the general culture of violence and racism pervading new brunswick in the late 40s, and give a voice to the voiceless. the novel is richer in detail and tragedy than these poems, but as a companion piece, it is essential and wholly moving. my deepest gratitude to bill thompson, canadian goodreader extraordinaire, for plying me with all the canadian books that i cannot get here. expect more lists, my friend.

come to my blog!

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Execution Poems tells the story of George and Rufus Hamilton, two black men in New Brunswick who were hanged in 1949. The two men were cousins of the poet. This slim volume also won the Governor General's Literary Award, which is no surprise.

The poems are heart wrenching. They are harsh and brutally honest in their depiction of the two men, of the other people around them, of the setting, of society. Each poem is raw and devastating, and sometimes painful to read. This is the kind of revealing poetry that makes poetry worth writing, and worth reading.

It wasn't always the style of poetry I would prefer, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Anyone looking for good poetry or looking for something about some of the darker areas of Canadian history should give this a read.

[Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

My intense love of Canadian literature probably comes from reading this and a few other incredible texts in my second year of university. One of the most beautiful and tragic anthologies I've ever read.

[Isabel Cormie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a powerful collection of poems George Elliott Clarke writes about his two late cousins who were hanged for killing a white taxi driver. The poems follow the two young, black Canadians and their struggles with oppression and growing up in Colonial Canada.

[Matty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working in the library, a lot of student have taken this book out for various assignments. Although I never read poetry I thought I'd give it a try and am glad I did. The poems were very thought-provoking and the book as a whole was very interesting. I may have to give poetry another shot

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rue: My colour is guttural.
I was born in lachrymose air.

My face makes a mess of light:
It's like a black splinter lancing snow.

I'm negative, bu positive with a knife.
My instinct? Is to damage someone.

My words collide with walls of fists,
Collapse, my teeth clacking like typewriters.

The encyclopedias encourage rape;
Murder lunges - sable genie - out the radio.

So what? So what? So what? So?
Am I the only nigger int his province with a pistol?

What I am
Cannot be dreamt

By anyone
Imperfect as you.

- Identity I, pg. 19

* * *

Geo: Blondola is good, and her body lovely;
and she is lovely, and her body good.

Her skin be tangerine, dry like white wine;
her hair be deliberately blonde.
But I lick the Sodom of her lips,
lap the Gomorrah of her snatch.

Lovin' her's like claspin wasps to my chest -
or the viper of her kisses.
Mine are rats' paws raspin her lips.

I want nothin more but
to go laughin into her blue house,
to stroll through milkweed, daisy, and thistle to a river,

to savour the thrash of fire in her gush,
that hairline fracture twixt her thighs.

- Georgie's Hits, pg. 27

* * *

I

We fell in love, then fell out -
By two - or one by one.
And all the Latin in a church
Can't union ex-lovers again.

II

Now I'll forego all luxury,
For love drafts no difference:
Jettison love in dark odysseys
From innocence to innocence.

III

Now when I drink black liquor,
It's only memory
Of a bed so warm like sugar,
Her hands stirrin me.

IV

I'll get to the lumber woods
To cut me some pine -
An find me sweeter honey
Lovers can imagine.

- Rue's Blues, pg. 30

* * *

A is a cracked steeple.
E is a long scream.
I is a gawky guillotine.
O is a silk abyss.
U is a fetus - or crab lice.
Y is a two-pronged gallows.

- Avowals, pg. 40

[Ronnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first picked up this poetry collection about ten years ago, for a class on Crime Fiction which I ended up dropping (it turns out that once-a-weel, three-hour classes that run until 10pm were not great for keeping the focus of a 19-year-old me). It tells the story of George and Rufus Hamilton, cousins of George Elliott Clarke, who were hanged before he was born.

I finally read it today as part of my goal to read one short story/some poetry a day. The entire boon was only 44 pages long, and so I decided to read the whole thing.

I'm hardly a great judge of poetry, and it's certainly not my place to talk about how the book handled the racism of Nova Scotia at in the early 1900s, but I thought this was well done. It was raw and brutal, filled with a lot of violence (including sexual violence). George Elliot Clarke doesn't shy away from using the rough and brutal language to describe these things, but with the occasional beautiful line that really shines.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really interesting way of exploring and explaining a small piece of history that many Canadians would like to pretend is not a problem in out country. The number of times I have heard people say that racism is an American problem but thankfully we don't have that problem north of the border makes my skin crawl. Trust me we absolutely do and denying it exists makes it harder to tackle it and makes you part of the problem. This glimpse of a traumatic life and sequence of events in New Brunswick shows that our past continues to contain stories that many Canadians would rather not acknowledge.
The only reason that my rating on this wasn't higher was because it is poetry and if you know me at all you know that this is a reflection of me not of this book. I liked it and I think it was an important read.

[katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. I don't know a lot about poetry so some of these poems--especially the really strange sexual ones--I just didn't understand in the context of murder? But anyway. The sound of the language is incredibly dark and complex and sinister and I liked that. I'm sure class might make me like it much more than I do right now once we study it.

[Kayleigh Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw and unapologetic. Clarke explores the history of KKKanada that is attempted to be covered up. We are no better than our Southern neighbours when it comes to racism and prejudice.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poetry collection to end the year. Dark and disturbing, visceral… a lament.

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice quick read. I would recommend pairing these poems with Clarke's novel, though, to better understand his interpretation of these characters.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Bluddy homaside”

[Dara Potvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love poetry - read this in my Canadian literature class