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.
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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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,