University of Waterloo alumnus, George Elliot Clarke (BA ’84), shares his journey as a celebrated poet, playwright, novelist, and the current Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.
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My road to the University of Waterloo was compelled by politics—and by poetry.
In early 1979, I was 19, writing poetry, listening to disco edge to rap and pop shift to punk, building a “Black Youth Organization” in Nova Scotia, and feeling very unsure about university study.
My father was an intellectual; my mother was a teacher; but both were working-class, and I inherited an aversion to debt. I was worried about getting a degree—and a depressing debt-load.
Still, Black Nova Scotian leader Burnley “Rocky” Jones advised me to go to the University of Waterloo to study Black Canadian history with professor Jim Walker. Rocky’s formidable wife, Joan, ordered me to go!
I wrote to Professor Walker (who still teaches at the University of Waterloo) and received several brochures about the university—and the Co-Op program in English. Here was a prayer granted!
I didn’t bother to apply anywhere else. I wanted to join the Co-Op Program, so I could get work experience, a pay cheque, and a degree—and stay out of debt!
I did start at UW in September 1979, and took a year-course in English from Professor Mary Gerhardstein, and I loved it!
Come September 1980, and I was in Co-Op—at last! However, I also worked as a change-maker at the Games Room in the Campus Centre, doling out rolls of quarters for players of pinball and video game machines.
My first two Co-Op work terms were spent in Toronto, controlling traffic signals during rush hour for the Traffic Control Centre of the Metropolitan Toronto Roads & Traffic Commission. It wasn’t glamorous, but I enjoyed “immunity from prosecution” for any accidents I might have triggered inadvertently!
Next, I spent two work-terms at the Ontario Provincial Parliament—Queen’s Park—as a researcher. Between work terms, I volunteered at Imprint.
After my fourth work-term in 1983, I left Co-Op to publish a first book of poetry and attend The Banff Centre for the Arts for a month-long course.
I graduated from UW in 1984, and was elected editor-in-chief of Imprint, 1984-85.
In 1985, back in Nova Scotia, I worked as a social worker (1985-86), founded my own community newspaper (1986-87), and started an M.A. degree in English (1986) at Dalhousie University.
Then, I went to work on Parliament Hill (1987-91), finished the M.A. (1989), and started a Ph.D. at Queen’s University in 1990, which was completed in 1993.
In 1994, I was hired at Duke University, in Durham, NC, where I pioneered the field of African-Canadian literature. This research brought me to McGill (1998-99) and then to the University of Toronto, where I’ve been since 1999.
Along the way, I won a few prizes, published 14 poetry works, 4 plays, 3 opera libretti, 2 novels, and 2 collections of research essays. In 2012-15, I served as Toronto’s 4th Poet Laureate, but also taught at Harvard University (2013-14).
Now, having just been appointed Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2016-17), I feel that I’m back to joining poetry and politics, but surely not so partisan as I was when I was Imprint editor!
I recall fondly English Profs Paul Beam, Joe Gold, John North, Ted McGee, Peter Hinchcliffe, Eric McGregor, Rota Lister, et al. I learned greatly from all--re: criticism, scholarship, and creative writing.
