The Call to Home by George Elliott Clarke (for The Hon. Mayann Francis) My Utopia? A round stone tower cobbled from marble and shale— such lone, ocean-coloured scenery amid greenery— the super-verdant Three Mile Plains— a dreamy, supreme jungle— green—as sumptuously green—as an avocado— where red-breast robins and black-cap chickadees stage a torrid clamour, strident canticles— their songs raging impromptu, glamorous arias— phantasmagorical cadences— airs— in my ears— while perfume buffets my face— the blossoming of apples, the tang of pine— an unmistakeable honey of unparalleled sweetness, heralding persistent Succulence. And indoors, tabled, are pears from Nova Scotia, pear wine from Nova Scotia (Morocco-adjacent is Nova Scotia)— sanctified bottles— an ambiance of cinnamon and lemons— the oneiric music of Portia White, trilling— an enterprise of light profiting every window. Here and now I awake, still adrift in dream, relishing a lingo of vino and aurora— seditious, gold-dawn Clairvoyance— mandatory sunflowers preening in the garden. And when I leaf my pages, the verses embody a Pantheon, and I’m a colossus of wine— as arrogant as Champagne— or Dylan Thomas-wild, Malcolm X-disciplined— a gardener corralling a jungle.…
George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. He was the 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17). An English professor at the University of Toronto, Clarke has taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard. He has received the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, Premiul Poesis (Romania), Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, and the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US). Basta!
