Life
Born to William and Geraldine Clarke in Three Mile Plains, Nova Scotia, Clarke has spent much of his career writing about the black communities of Nova Scotia. Clarke worked as a parliamentary assistant to Howard McCurdy, MP in Ottawa. He also taught for a time in the African-American Studies department at Duke University.
Clarke earned a B.A. honours degree in English from the University of Waterloo (1984), an M.A. degree in English from Dalhousie University (1989) and a Ph.D. degree in English from Queen’s University (1993). He has received honorary degrees from Dalhousie University (LL.D.), the University of New Brunswick (Litt.D.), the University of Alberta (Litt.D.), the University of Waterloo (Litt.D.), and most recently, Saint Mary's University (Litt.D). He is currently an English professor at the University of Toronto.
Clarke is a sought-after conference speaker and is active in poetry circles. He is currently promoting his latest book, I & I (January 2009). It delves into layers of spiritual meanings involving a couple traveling from Halifax to Texas and encountering tragedies of racism and sexism.
He currently teaches at the University of Toronto.
Read more about this topic: George Elliott Clarke
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death:
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)
“The ultimate umpire of all things in life is—Fact.”
—Agnes C. Laut (1871–1936)