14 November 2001
George Elliott Clarke Wins
Governor General's Award

Kentville, NS – The Canada Council for the Arts announced today that George Elliott Clarke's Execution Poems has won the 2001 Governor General's Award for Poetry in English. The other nominees in this category were: Anne Carson (Men in the Off Hours), Phil Hall (Trouble Sleeping), Robert Kroetsch (The Hornbooks of Rita K.) and Steve McCaffery (Seven Pages Missing).

The jury, Erin Mouré, Lisa Robertson and John Steffler, commented that: "Execution Poems is raging, gristly, public – and unflinchingly beautiful. Clarke plays with rhyme, theatre and the shape of the book, showing us justice as official speech perpetrates it and as ordinary speech registers it. He harnesses the pain in the history of racism and pours it into explosive, original language."

George Elliott Clarke is the first African-Canadian writer to win the Governor General's Award for poetry. Clarke is also the first Atlantic Canadian to win the award in 26 years. The last Atlantic Canadian poet to receive the award was Milton Acorn, who won in 1975 for his book, This Island Means Minago. Execution Poems is the first book published by an Atlantic Canadian press to win the award since 1990.

Execution Poems was originally produced in a limited, hand-printed edition of 66 books. Due to demand and the overwhelming interest in the title, Gaspereau Press released Execution Poems in a trade paper edition. The text of the trade edition is a digital resetting of the original text, with the addition of a foreword which describes the original printing of the title.

George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia. He has published five books of poetry, including Blue (2001) and Whylah Falls (1990), which won the Archibald Lampman Award. His opera Beatrice Chancy, with music by James Rolfe, has had four stage productions and a broadcast on CBC television. In addition to being a poet, playwright and literary critic, Clarke is also a professor of English at the University of Toronto. He was awarded the prestigious Portia White prize in 1998.

Gaspereau Press is a Nova Scotia owned and operated trade publisher based in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Publishing short-run editions of both literary and regional interest, Gaspereau Press produces quality paperbacks and limited-edition hardcover books aimed at the Canadian market. The press was established in 1997 by Gary Dunfield and Andrew Steeves and is one of the few publishers in Canada that also operates a full-scale print shop, producing its own books. This hands-on approach has prompted Gaspereau Press to experiment with antiquated technologies along with modern production methods. While the majority of its books are produced using contemporary equipment, Gaspereau Press also preserves and employs many antique presses and hot-metal typesetters, and often uses them in the production of its books.

The Governor General's Award for poetry is one of the most prestigious and sought-after poetry awards in the country. A prize of $15,000 is awarded annually by the Governor General of Canada to a select group of works of literary art deemed most excellent by an ever-changing group of poets. This year, 1,374 books were submitted for the 14 awards (seven in English and seven in French) in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, translation, children's text and children's illustration.