George Elliott Clarke

George Elliott Clarke's poetry subscribes to Irving Layton's adage that "good poems should rage like a fire, burning all things." Blue is black, profane, surly, damning and unrelenting in its brilliance.

The five parts of Blue skilfully expand and dissect Clarke's rage until it becomes a violet bruise of love and mourning. From the opening "Black" section, which blisters Clarke's roots as "Her Majesty's Nasty, Nofaskoshan (Nova Scotian) Negro," to the sensually explicit satirics of the "Red" section; from the fiery and fierce tenderness of the "Gold Sapphics" to the uncompromising lament of the "Blue Elegies," Clarke has written urgent and necessary poems-poems that burn the reader, illuminating us with their rage, truth and beauty.