Saltwater Spirituals, an Electronic Edition
author: George Elliott Clarke
source date: 1983
edition published: April 2002

Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues

George Elliott Clarke
Pottersfield Press, 1983
Support for this publication was provided by the Multiculturalism Program, Government of Canada.

"How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Psalms 137:4

For William and Geraldine Clarke, Portia White and Conrad Kent Rivers.

Canadian Cataloguing Publication Data

Clark, George Elliott, 1960 - Saltwater spirituals and deeper blues

Poems. ISBN 0-919001-12-2 (bound) )-919001-13-0 (pkb.) I. Title PS8555.L37S34 C811'.54 C83-098593 PR9199.3.C55S34

Copyright 1983 George Elliott Clarke

Acknowledgments: The Pottersfield Portfolio, Caribe, Ebony (Black) Express News, Scrivener, Skylight, The Antigonish Review, Germination, Poetry Toronto, Origins, Poet's Haus, dandelion and Quarry.

Photography Sources: Black United Front, The Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Dalhousie University Archives, David Middleton.

Cover design: Rudnicki Art Production

Pottersfield Press
RR 2, Porters Lake
N.S. B0J 2S0

Contents

- INTRODUCTION by Sylvia Hamilton . . . . . . . . 5

Soul Songs

- The Sermon on the Atlantic Africville Seaview African Baptist Church . . . . . . . . 13
- Guysborough Road Church . . . . . . . . 14
- Campbell Road Church . . . . . . . . 15
- Beech Hill African Baptist Church . . . . . . . . 16
- Horton Church . . . . . . . . 17
- Fall River Church . . . . . . . . 18
- Amherst African Methodist Episcopal Church . . . . . . . . 19
- Liverpool United Baptist Church . . . . . . . . 20
- Musquodoboit Road Church . . . . . . . . 21
- Sydney African Methodist Episcopal Church . . . . . . . . 22
- Cherrybrook African Baptist Church . . . . . . . . 23
- Hammonds Plains African Baptist Church . . . . . . . . 24
- Photographs . . . . . . . . 25

Blues Notes

- hymn for portia white . . . . . . . . 35
- passion and precision . . . . . . . . 35
- love poem/song regarding Weymouth Falls . . . . . . . . 36
- homage to the beloved country . . . . . . . . 37
- Crying the Beloved Country . . . . . . . . 38
- Watercolour for Negro Expatriates in France . . . . . . . . 39
- Cotton Club . . . . . . . . . . 42
- Can't Seem to Settle Down . . . . . . . . 43
- Dominion Atlantic Railway . . . . . . . . 44
- North Atlantic . . . . . . . . 45
- Lady Love . . . . . . . . 46
- The Emissaries . . . . . . . . 47
- Weymouth Falls . . . . . . . . 48
- East Coasting . . . . . . . . 49
- Relativity . . . . . . . . 50
- Primitivism . . . . . . . . 51
- For Robinson Jeffers . . . . . . . . 52
- Autobiography . . . . . . . . 53
- Photographs . . . . . . . . 54

The Book of Jubilee

- Invocation of the Prophet . . . . . . . . 65
- Genealogy . . . . . . . . 66
- Portents . . . . . . . . 67
- Childhood . . . . . . . . 68
- That Stars are Winged Creatures Over a Blue World . . . . . . . .69
- Virginia . . . . . . . . 70
- Signs . . . . . . . . 71
- Exodus . . . . . . . . 73
- Nova Scotia . . . . . . . . 74
- A Root and a Name . . . . . . . . 75
- Scripture . . . . . . . . 76
- Sermon . . . . . . . . 77
- Work . . . . . . . . 78
- Harvest . . . . . . . . 79
- Drought . . . . . . . . 80
- Shelley . . . . . . . . 81
- The Christmas Song of the African Fishers . . . . . . . . 82
- Year of Jubilee . . . . . . . . 83
- Granville Mountain . . . . . . . . 84
- Photographs . . . . . . . . 85
- Notes on the Author . . . . . . . .95

Introduction

George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor Plains in 1960 which makes him twenty-three at the time of this publication. Though he left Windsor Plains when just a few months old, his mother, Geraldine, says his heart is still there. When home, he always manages a trip to Windsor Plains to visit aunts, uncles and cousins.

Geraldine says George has an old Bible, one that is ragged and torn, with paper markers throughout. It's more worn, she says than a minister's Bible; it is coverless and very much out of shape. Spirituality is an important part of George's poetry but he is never dogmatic. Geraldine likes his poems about Africville Seaview and Guysborough Baptist Churches. As I talked to her, it struck me that George would have been barely six years old when the bulldozers began razing Africville. [vg1][^1]

[^1: Africville was a small settlement in the North end of what is now Halifax, Nova Scotia. Africville was settled by former Black American slaves after the War of 1812, but the community's history can be traced back to the 1700s. It was officially founded in the 1840s. Neglect and disregard of the community by the City of Halifax led to its increasingly impoverished state; it was bulldozed by the City of Halifax in the 1960s in an effort to "clean up" the city.]

Before George went to the University of Waterloo, he was deeply involved in organizing the Black Youth Organization (BYO) in Nova Scotia. Along with his friends and colleagues he organized a conference which brought together youth from across the province. He would often stop by to talk about the BYO. I'd make a pot of tea and we would end up talking for hours not only about his current preoccupation with issues facing Black Youth, but about literature, politics, people, music, writing, and the Bible.

One can't help but admire and be drawn to George. A friend calls him "effervescent". He is also sincere and disarmingly honest. These qualities shine through his writing which is both passionate and reasoned. Yet George is also good humoured and inventive. In February, 1981, he became captivated with computers while working in an underground office of the Metropolitan Toronto Roads and Traffic Commission's Control Centre. Within a very short time, George had mastered the machine and began composing poetry on the computer. Part of George's job at the Centre was to draft a computer handbook for use by people with little or no computer experience.

George wears his heritage like an emblem with warm pride and gentle enthusiasm. He has read and intently studied the history and literature of Blacks in Nova Scotia, Canada and elsewhere. The history, especially, is important to him and is mirrored in his creative work.

When Black Refugees arrived in Nova Scotia following the War of 1812, it is unlikely that they were aware history was being made. Given the harsh conditions they had just escaped, they were no doubt relieved to simply feel safe, away from the guns, hard labour and enslavement. Who in such circumstances could think of history?

With the publication of this volume of poetry, another chapter of history unfolds. Unlike our ancestral Refugee relatives, we are acutely aware of its importance as an historical event. I can't help but believe the Refugee forebears of George Elliott Clarke sit with me now as I write these words. They are proud as I am proud. They raise their arms in silent salute to this talented grandson.

The beginnings of the African Baptist Church in Nova Scotia date back to 1782 when forty year old David George came to Nova Scotia. A former Virginia slave, George had been converted to Christianity by a Black man named Cyrus. He taught himself to read using the Bible, and eventually he became the first minister of the Baptist Church in Silver Bluff, South Carolina. Rev. George, his wife Phyllis and their three children, escaped to Nova Scotia with the first group of Loyalists who arrived in the winter of 1782. They spent twenty-two gruelling days on board a vessel which eventually landed them in Halifax. Later, in the spring of 1783, thousands of Black and White Loyalists made their way to Nova Scotia at the close of the American Revolution.

David George and his family settled in Shelburne where he preached to and converted Black and White settlers alike to the Baptist faith. His evangelical work extended to other areas as well; travelling by foot and by boat, George spread the gospel to eager souls in Halifax, St. John, Liverpool and Lockeport. Even as he preached, however, there were many who didn't like his mixing of the races. On one occasion, the family of a White woman tried to prevent Rev. George from baptizing her. Other confrontations were more harrowing. A group of disbanded White soldiers tore apart George's meeting house in Shelburne and beat him severely until he fled into the woods to escape. Rev. George, however, continued to preach, not only in Nova Scotia, but also in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where he is credited with establishing the Baptist faith in Africa.

Not all Black Loyalist settlers were Baptist. Boston King, a boat builder, and Moses Wilkinson, who was both blind and lame, ministered to the African Methodist Episcopal congregations. John Marrant, a musician, was sent as an ordained missionary to Nova Scotia by a British religious group called the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion. He preached in Birchtown and Liverpool and gained Black and Indian converts. Women, too, were spiritual and evangelical leaders. Boston King's wife, Violet, was converted by Moses Wilkinson and became an active and valuable leader in his church. Mary Perth and Catherine Abernathy, the latter a teacher, are also recorded as contributing to the spiritual lives of Blacks in Birchtown.

The migration of Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone in 1792 greatly depleted the province's Black population. Yet the memory and hard work of these men and women of faith remained as the foundation for others who followed. Richard Preston, the father and founder of the African United Baptist Association came to

Liverpool United Baptist Church

national sea products limited [rt1] [National Sea Products is a large Canadian fish-processing company, and a major employer in the region.]
locks the ocean to our beds each night,
chains bitter-keen winds to our hearts,
batters us with wrecking storms and debt
until our wives complain
we are cold to touch.
to forget the ocean and wind,
we read our futures in rum.
to abandon the debits and our wives
we land like fish, their carragheen nipples
quivering,
we go to a charmless chapel
of birch benches and hard sermons
and take our burdens to the Lord.
yet, no bread and wine set our tables,
only rations of flour and hog.
ah, national sea products limited
shackles the deeps to our eyes,
clamps the storm-winds to our ears,
fetters us to death by water
or by exposure to banks and trusts.

Musquodoboit Road Church

micmac [rt2] [An aboriginal people of the region] windpoems sing
Spring's resurrection,
foretold by the sharp, fused fragrance
of jubilee roses,
and the appearance of shiny, new
blue cars of waves,
cruising the beaches.
knowing this sensual verse,
we ensure fertility.
we prepare a path through the wilderness.
we prepare the Easter Sunrise Service:
blue-grass banjo jamborees,
sepia saints in ivory robes, and the flash
of fish, flapping and flopping,
at the hooked close of a gossamer line
of predatory poetry.

we prepare the way of the Lord.

Sydney African Methodist Episcopal Church

we who work steel, who
are cold and hard as steel,
who stumble in storms of smoke and blown ash,
like penitent sinners,
to and from gloomy, holy taverns,
have eaten of Circe's [rt3] [In Greek mythology, Circe was a beautiful sorcerer whose spells could turn men into swine.] sweet lotus,
have broken the young buds of breasts.
we have seen warm, virginal water run bloody
from flesh firm as solid stone:
we know the honey in that rock.
we have eaten of the lily,
and felt the world kick in our loins,
Lethe surge in our veins.
we know greenhouses of women
bearing sugared yams of children
for the slavemarkets of this world.

Cherrybrook African Baptist Church

why berate the sable night?
why run about, fiery with love,
howling at the frigid moon?
it is futile.
why walk dark dartmouth
forest paths dreaming of a little
red riding girl to possess?
it is vanity.
why watch the heavens for a sign
of a coming messiah-paramour
who will love you fang for claw,
measure for measure?
no sign will be given.

do not lose faith; wait; endure
unto the end and you will be saved.

Photograph Credits

The publisher is grateful for the permission granted by the following:

- P. 25. Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 26. Black United Front of Nova Scotia
- P. 27. Irvine Collection Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 28. Black United Front of Nova Scotia
- P. 29. Black United Front of Nova Scotia
- P. 30. Dalhousie University Archives
- P. 31. Black United Front of Nova Scotia
- P. 32. Black United Front of Nova Scotia
- P. 54. Irvine Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 55. Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 56. Notman Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 57. Notman Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 58. Notman Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 59. Norwood Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 60. David Middleton
- P. 61. David Middleton
- P. 62. David Middleton
- P. 86. Dalhousie University Archives
- P. 87. Irvine Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 88. Dalhousie University Archives
- P. 89. Irvine Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 90. Irvine Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 91. Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 92. Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 93. Irvine Collection, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
- P. 94. Black United Front of Nova Scotia

The Minister of State for Multiculturalism and the Multiculturalism Directorate disclaim any responsibility in whole or in part for the views and opinions expressed and for the completeness or accuracy of information included in this publication.