What is it like to be \u201ccancelled,\u201d to be shouted down by the virulently self-righteous, and to be permitted no hearing, no defence?<\/p>\n

In J\u2019Accuse…! (Poem Versus Silence)<\/em>, an essay-in-poetry by Canada\u2019s Parliamentary Poet Laureate emeritus, George Elliott Clarke contemplates how terrifyingly easy it was for him to fall victim \u2013 in January 2020 \u2013 to shrill defamation and scurrilous denunciation, to face \u201canti-social\u201d media intimidation \u2013 all facilitated by reportage that spurred outrage rather than reflection. The result? Censorship and silencing, blacklisting and gag orders, the specialty of tyrannies, including the newfangled cult of \u201ccancellaires\u201d and \u201cdigilantes.\u201d<\/p>\n

J\u2019Accuse…!<\/em> is a poignant manifesto that calls upon intellectuals and radicals to never submit to impulses that intentionally, or even unintentionally, forbid debate and questioning.<\/p>\n

J\u2019Accuse…!<\/em> ponders what is truly unspeakable: injustice.<\/p>\n

J\u2019Accuse…!<\/em> is a cri-de-coeur<\/em> that unflinchingly reveals the personal cost \u2013 borne by all poets who strive to \u201cbear witness to Treasure \u2013 \/ despite all opposing Battery.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, has served as the fourth Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15), the seventh Parliamentary\/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke and Harvard. He has published over 20 books of poetry, four plays, two novels, and has won numerous awards. He lives in Toronto.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJ\u2019Accuse…!<\/em> is so dynamic, joyous in its language and emotion, and consistently exciting, engrossing…. A page-turner! And mysteriously easy to read given the inventiveness, colour,
\nand torsion of the poetic language…. A wonderful combination of the sophisticated, the primal, and the available. Great poetry has this sense of generous, human outreach from a very high and deep place. Something that comes down from the mountain yet without condescending.\u201d \u2014A.F. Moritz, Guggenheim Award & Griffin Poetry Prize Laureate & Toronto Poet Laureate (2019-23)<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

Reviewed by John B. Lee:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Canada\u2019s most celebrated living poets George Elliott Clarke is outraged. His amazing response to a period of public shaming is self-described as a work that versifies animadversion \u2013 glossed by imagination.<\/em>\u00a0 In his fourteen-part book, J\u2019Accuse<\/em>, he frequently compares himself to the neoteric Roman poet Cinna, wrongfully hanged for his misrepresented association with one of the assassins of Julius Caesar. And so one may or may not be familiar with the backstory of Clarke\u2019s \u2018guilt by association\u2019 [his words] with a rapist and murderer, because of the fact that, innocent of any knowledge of this fellow poet\u2019s crime, Clarke had briefly mentored the rapist poet and then expressed the possibility of including an interpretation of that individual\u2019s poetry at a forthcoming university conference where he (Clarke) was to be a guest speaker. In his own defence, Clarke writes: I praised good poetry by a bad man. \/ I wasn\u2019t whitewashing Bloodshed. \/ I was trying to advise a poet \u2013 \/ not help him scrub up as sparkly as Liberace.<\/em> And so, in the popular press and in the court of public opinion Clarke found himself in a whirlwind of vitriol and vituperation, and in a phrase used frequently in the book \u2018guilty by association\u2019 and he the \u2018pariah poet\u2019 that Ivory Tower nigger. \/ That drat public figure. \/\u00a0 That Phony.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who knows the work of George Elliott Clarke, anyone even passingly familiar with his writing or his reputation as a champion of just causes, and anyone who might call Clarke a friend, would immediately question the accusers. Yet in this age of \u2018truthiness\u2019 and cancel culture (or as Clarke writes it Kancel Kulture – emphasis on the \u2018K\u2019 as in Ku Klux Klan) it is more a matter of what you believe to be true than it is a matter of what is true. Or as Clarke puts it: Well, the Truth is immaterial: It\u2019s what you believe.<\/em> As George Elliot states on several occasions in the early parts of the book he was convicted without a trial for the content of a talk he had not yet written. He was vilified in the press as he writes: reporters weaponization of Opprobrium \u2013 \/ to pervert Opinion to a Pitch of Calumny? \u2026Well, ain\u2019t black chaps everyone\u2019s fave scapegoats? \/ I should have known \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this book is often hilarious. All those who would misrepresent Clarke should take note.\u00a0 He is brilliant and clever and absolutely uproarious. His puns are scathingly funny. Here are a few fine examples. Imagine a civil servant being described as a \u2018simple serpent.\u2019 Take the phrasing of \u2018Imprisoned\u2019 (I was in lisping Misprison) or not as Literati, \/ but as niggerati,<\/em> or A worse lyre \u2013 <\/em>followed fast by a worse liar<\/em> in case you missed the pun. Another example of Clarke\u2019s cleverness Nuttin\u2019s so tribal as da diatribal, eh?\u00a0<\/em> And in one of my favourite poems in the book after mentioning \u2018iffy Pound\u2019 and thereby reminding us all of how a poet is sometimes not as good as his poems he ends the poem by affirming the book title\u2019s reference to Zola\u2019s letter on the infamous Dreyfus affair, \u2013 since Zola \u2013 to run afoul \/ of regime after regime of attempted regimen of the Soul<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book is dedicated to several female victims of violence, most tellingly to Pamela Jean George, the Cree woman raped and murdered by the bad man who tricked Clarke into a brief mentorship. And one thanks one\u2019s lucky stars for poets as courageous as Clarke, poets who not only believe in poetry, but risk everything to champion the \u2018poem over silence.\u2019\u00a0 And he importunes us all: Remember Ms. George: \/ Her wind-dark eyes, her pine-dark hair, \/ the sable glint of her ink, unsullied, \/ until radio\u2019d blues stained the night<\/em>. Sometimes poetry is important. Sometimes it is essential. This virtuoso behind Execution Poems<\/em>, strikes a blow for truth and we who see the honest man behind the mask of words are reconciled and grateful for the courage of the man who wrote J\u2019Accuse<\/em> in bold red against a stark white cover followed by an ellipsis closed by a well-earned exclamation point \u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a time of malevolent righteousness, often described as Cancel Culture, J\u2019Accuse<\/em> is an essay-in-poetry by Canada\u2019s Parliamentarian Poet Laureate emeritus that responds to the impacts of being \u201ccancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poetry 2021 \u2022 6 x 9 inches \u2022 PB 208 pages \u2022 9781550969535<\/p>\n

Poetry\/Canadian. Social Science\/Sociology\/Social Theory.<\/p>\n

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