Taken from the preface of the first edition of Clarke's [Whylah Falls]:

Founded in 1783 by African-American Loyalists seeking Liberty, Justice and Beauty, Whylah Falls is a village in Jarvis County, Nova Scotia. Wrecked by country blues and warped by constant tears, it is a snowy, northern Mississippi, with blood spattered, not on magnolias, but on pines, lilacs, and wild roses.

This book is a narrative poem set in the fictional setting of Whylah Falls during the 1930's. With a listing of 17 characters as dramatis personae, their stories unfold through a combination of poetry, songs, sermons, newspaper clippings, photographs and the unique voices of the characters. Love making, passion, drinking, music playing, hard labour and misery are themes that occur here. One of the main stories is the murder of one black man by another over a woman. Divided into eight sections, separate sections focus on the experiences and problems of specific pairs of lovers.

In Whylah Falls, life is mercurial and Clarke portrays his characters - lovers, murderers, muses and musicians - as voices of a marginalized racial group. The wide range of mediums Clarke utilizes here - everything from blues ballads, haiku, free verse and even some biblical phrases - works and works really well to convey the story. The characters gain their strength for survival from their drinking, their music and their love making. The beauty of this book is how Clarke weaves nature into his poetic descriptions, softening and heightening the senses of the reader for the story.

Overall, an extraordinary book of poems and the story they tell. ( )

Summary: A poetry book that tells of a community of African-Canadians in Nova Scotia. An assemblage of poets, lovers, and murderers.

Review: I have a serious weakness for books that blur the distinction between poetry and novel. They are my kryptonite. When talking about Canadian lit, I love Ondaatje's contributions to this small but powerful genre, and I love Clarke's as well. Clarke is a vivid, powerful poet, using both the language of high literary culture and the earthy language of the Whylah community -- of what he calls "Africadia" -- to create a clash of cultures and a space in time.

I love the different sections of the poems and the glimpses of the different inhabitants of Whylah Falls. I love X's courtship of Shelley and Shelley's own reluctance to accept X, criticizing his language as the language of outsiders, of oppression, of the system. I love the tension that Clarke displays between gender and race, and I love the little insights into language and literature, such as when Clarke says, "So what if you drop the final 'g' in 'ing' and use the affirmative 'be' as essence. Literature be the tongue you do your lovin' in."

Amen.

Conclusion: Powerful and poetic. What more can you ask for? ( )