Soundin' Canaan

Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship

Paul db Watkins

• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781771126236
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

Part exploration of a key group of Black Canadian poets, part literary, cultural, and musical history, Soundin’ Canaan demonstrates how music in Black Canadian poetry is not solely aesthetic, but a form of social, ethical, and political expression.

Soundin' Canaan refers to the code name often used for Canada during the Black migration to Canada. The book analyzes the contributions of key Black Canadian poets, including their poetic styles and their performances. The book has several key objectives, including recuperating the collision of the historical and the Biblically derived figure of Canaan, the promised land of freedom and security for an African American population seeking to leave the shackles of slavery behind and the northern terminus of the underground railroad. Centering around the poetry of George Elliott Clarke, Dionne Brand, M. NourbeSe Philip, Wayde Compton, and rapper K’naan, it delves into how these poets draw inspiration from African American and Afro-diasporic musical genres, such as blues, jazz, reggae and dub, hip-hop, and remix, to reshape the notions of identity and citizenship. Soundin' Canaan asks: what does Canadian citizenship sound like, especially when voiced by Black Canadian poets who embrace a fluid and multicultural form of citizenship that moves between local and global spaces, much like music does?

Using a DJ Methodology, the author mixes in close readings of poetry, music, cultural and literary history, as well as various interviews with the poets. The book includes an accompanying soundtrack to further enhance the reading experience. Listening to the poets in this book—that is in listening closely to the poems, sounds, and musical samples they bring into the mix—constitutes “sonic citizenship.” This co-performative act of reading, listening, and sounding serves as a reminder of how citizens inhabit and negotiate life in Canada beyond the formal legal framework of the nation-state.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Prelude
• Overture: DJ Methodology: Re-sounding the Past
• Coda: Dialogue and Dissonance
• 1: Blues Vernacular and “Harmonious Dissonance” in George Elliott Clarke’s Colouring Pentateuch: Blue, Black, Red, Gold, and White
• 2: Listening to a Listening: The Disruptive Jazz Poetics of Dionne Brand’s Ossuaries and The Blue Clerk (A Call Toward Freedom)
• 3: Dub Poetics and Improvised Chant in M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!
• 4: Wavin’ the Multicultural Flag: Canadian Hip Hop and “Sonic Citizenship” in K’naan’s Music
• 5: Recovery and Remix: Wayde Compton’s Turntable Poetics
• Outro: The New Black Can(aan)Lit and the Community to Come
• Shout Outs!
• Notes
• Selected Discography
• Bibliography
• Copyright Acknowledgements
• Index