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    Copper Woman: And Other Poems
    Copper Woman: And Other Poems
    Copper Woman: And Other Poems
    Ebook113 pages55 minutes

    Copper Woman: And Other Poems

    By Afua Cooper

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    About this ebook

    Copper Woman and Other Poems is a collection of poems that announces a humanistic vision, dealing with such themes as rebirth (physical and symbolic), mythology, memory, bondage, blood, family, identities in flux, migration, politics and flights of fancy. The contents move back and forth between the past and the present, and project into the future, envisioning a new world/a new creation. The message that we are our brothers and our sisters keepers and that the earth is our home – a home that we must protect and keep safe if we are to survive – resonates throughout.

    Copper Woman is a call to arms against apathy and all forms of tyranny. It is liberatory dub poetics that say equality and equity are possible and within reach. It invites its readers to cast off their chains and shackles and proclaim their freedom. It invites us all to grasp a greater vision of our world.

    Jamaican-born Dr. Afua Cooper has achieved considerable success as a dub poet and as the author of a children’s book, a collection of poetry and as co-author of The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto! Dr. Cooper is a recent recipient of the Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateJan 26, 2007
    ISBN9781770706354
    Copper Woman: And Other Poems
    Author

    Afua Cooper

    AFUA COOPER holds a Ph.D. in African Canadian history, with specialties in slavery and abolition. She is the co-author of ‘We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up’: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History, which won the prestigious Joseph Brant Award for History. She is also one of Canada’s most versatile poets and has published five volumes of poetry, including the acclaimed Copper Woman. Dr. Cooper has taught history at the University of Toronto.

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      Book preview

      Copper Woman - Afua Cooper

      COPPER

      WOMAN

      And Other Poems

      Jamaica Kincaid writes, My mother died at the moment I was born, and so…there was nothing standing between myself and eternity. If place of origin sources story – and connection to origin has almost been destroyed – a writer has nothing standing between herself and eternity. It is from here that Afua Cooper calls forth remnants of story that still recognize their names: her family and ancestors in Jamaica; African, Islamic, Greek, Voudou, Egyptian, and Indigenous Caribbean divinities; historical Black Canadian voices of Richard Pierpont and Marie Joseph Angelique; and Africa wailin/as Toronto get hot/an Black people dance/communally. Eloquent and visionary, Cooper's poems are like the fruits and flowers her mother sells in the market: she does not solicit customers/they come of their own volition.

      – Betsy Warland, poet and professor of creative writing, Simon

      Fraser University, British Columbia

      COPPER

      WOMAN

      And Other Poems

      AFUA COOPER

      NATURAL HERITAGE BOOKS

      TORONTO

      Copyright © 2006 Afua P. Cooper

      Second Printing January 2007

      All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher.

      Published by Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc.

      P.O. Box 95, Station O, Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8

      www.naturalheritagebooks.com

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Cooper, Afua

      Copper woman : and other poems / Afua Cooper.

      ISBN 1-897045-09-3

      I. Title.

      PS8555.O584C66 2006           C811'.54           C2006-901177-X

      Front cover: Honolulu Academy of Arts, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Philip E. Spalding, 1932 (49.1). Diego RIVERA (1886-1957), Mexico, Flower Seller, 1926;

      oil on canvas, 36 x 43-3/4 in. (91.4 x 111.1 cm).

      Back cover: The author, photograph by Edward Gajdel © 2006.

      Cover and text design by Sari Naworynski

      Edited by fane Gibson

      Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Book Printing of Winnipeg

      Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc. acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation's Ontario Book Initiative. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Association for the Export of Canadian Books.

      It is with profound love and affection that I dedicate

      this book to my mother, Ruth Campbell Cooper,

      the original Copper Woman.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      FOREWORD BY NEIL ARMSRONG

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      PART I: BIRD OF PARADISE

      Bird of Paradise

      At the Centre

      Dub for Lisa

      Night Ease

      Horus of My Heart

      For Nur

      Negro Cemeteries

      The Child is Alive

      PART II: COPPER WOMAN

      Copper Woman (La Mujer de Cobre)

      Red Eyes

      Maroon Man

      Nomad's Blood

      Atabeyra (Mater Dolorosa)

      My Name is Phillis Wheatley

      Fire Woman

      Fire Woman II

      PART III: BIOGRAPHY

      Biography

      Eid al Adha, 1995

      So Many Words Unsaid

      Childbirth

      Motherhood

      Di Apple of Har Y'eye

      Even Warrior Women

      Richard Pierpont, Revolutionary Soldier

      Daily Bread

      PART IV: AFRICA WAILIN

      Africa Wailin

      True Revolution

      Confessions of a Woman Who Burnt Down a Town

      Diamond is a Girl's Best Friend

      Ah Caan Tink About It

      The Stones Are Speaking

      Congo Wi Come From

      Killed by Friendly American Fire in Afghanistan

      Children Gone to War

      Woman a Wail

      Palestine 1993

      PART V: BLACK MADONNA

      Black Madonna

      Lovetalk

      Man of Fire

      Seaspray

      Beneath a Fervent Moon

      Hibiscus

      My Illusion

      Sugar

      Red Sea Woman

      Making Love in Lotus Pose

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      FOREWORD

      Poet Lights a Natch of Flaming Words

      Poet Afua Cooper draws from her wide knowledge of history – personal and monumental – to evoke the ancestors, vistas of her childhood,

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