Book details

Publication date: January 2020
Series: Robert Kroetsch Series
Keywords: African-Canadian, spoken word, social justice, environmental justice, Queenie, environmental racism, #metoo, Anita Hill, queer, Black feminism, anorexia, bulimia, Sierra Leone, Windrush Generation, Kona, Yoruba, Thomas Peters, sexual assault, drug culture, decolonization, immigration, social media
Subject(s): POETRY / Canadian, POETRY / Women Authors, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Black Studies (Global), Poetry / Spoken Word / Canadian Literature, African-Canadian, spoken word, social justice, environmental justice, Queenie, environmental racism, #metoo, Anita Hill, queer, Black feminism, anorexia, bulimia, Sierra Leone, Windrush Generation, Kona, Yoruba, Thomas Peters, sexual assault, drug culture, decolonization, immigration, social media, Poetry, Canadian Literature, Poetry, Relating to Black British African people, Diversity, Women's Studies
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press

Valerie Mason-John. Poet, author, and public speaker Valerie Mason-John (a.k.a. “Queenie”) highlights issues of the African Diaspora and the Black, female, Queer identity and resists the currently existing overt and covert forms of colonialism through her fierce and brave writing. She is the author of eight books. Her debut novel, Borrowed Body, won the 2006 Mind Book of the Year Award. She co-edited the award-winning anthology, The Great Black North: Contemporary African Canadian Poetry and co-produced blackhalifax.com. She lives in Vancouver. Find her online at valeriemason-john.com.

George Elliott Clarke.

"[T]he wide range of Mason-John’s vision ... traverses history, geography, and culture.... [Her poetry] is significant for its reappraisal of our collective past, which so often overlooks or writes over marginalized voices and experiences. [Mason-John is] explicit in calling out a hypocritical Canadian multiculturalism that pays lip service to inclusion while simultaneously entrenching systemic biases and processes that maintain a racist and exclusionary status quo." [Full review at https://quillandquire.com/review/the-response-of-weeds-a-misplacement-of-black-poetry-on-the-prairies/ ]

Steven W. Beattie, Quill & Quire

"This poetry collection grabs you... Readers are confronted with the violence of the Black experience, from the haunting spectre of slavery to the current and ongoing terrorizing of the Black diaspora at the hands of the police. All of the messy, the painful, the enraging -- what we’re conditioned to believe as shameful -- is laid bare for the readers and brought to the fore. Many of these accounts traverse various places -- whether in the U.K., the U.S., or Canada -- and the bluntness and force of her words arrest you." [Full article at https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/book-review-i-am-still-your-negro-by-valerie-mason-john]

Junie Desil, Vancouver Sun

Included on CBC Books's list of top Canadian poetry of the year in December 2020.

“The topics range from slavery and colonization to global politics and historical realities, addressing the racialized and gendered intersections of African identity, diaspora, and ancestry…. Mason-John’s poetry sheds light on these harsh realities through personal and vulnerable narratives. Their writing also offers hope for our futures by reminding readers of our collective reservoir of power, resilience, and creativity. With these tools in our hands and our ancestors beside us, we may still be negros, but we ain’t silent about it no more.” [Full article at https://arrow-journal.org/language-and-personal-narrative-in-revolutionary-poetry/]

shah noor hussein, The Arrow

"I Am Still Your Negro takes no prisoners. With sheer brilliance, Valerie Mason-John creates poems that burn Babylon and Rome; bring you to tears; make you shout hallelujah. Her voice is that of the lamenting mother, vengeful goddess, triumphant warrior, compassionate lover, a cool ruler with a pure heart. I am left with only one conclusion about this book: it is a tour de force."

Afua Cooper is Halifax's Poet Laureate, a global Dub poet, and Black Studies professor at Dalhousie University

"I Am Still Your Negro hauls us all up by the collar to face our shared complicity. A lot of damage has been inflicted through racism, sexism, greed. Mason-John opens some wounds in the hope of healing them."

Alice Major, author of Welcome to the Anthropocene

Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, League of Canadian Poets, Canada
Long-listed
2021
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, BC and Yukon Book Prizes, West Coast Book Prize Society, Canada
Short-listed
2021
ix Foreword George Elliott Clarke
xiii ID
xvii Introduction

#Undocumented
Back a Yard
My Father’s Prayer
Sticks and Stones

#ThisIsAfricanDiaspora
Yaata’s Lament
The Ghost of Thomas Peters
I Am Africa
African Feet
The Windrush
I Am Still Your Negro
Another One Bites the Dust

#MeToo
Yaata’s Yowl
Business
Golden Virginia
The Villain
The Perfect Road
The Couplet
#MeToo
Playing Dead

#IfMyPlantsCouldSpeak
Yaata’s Groan
Yellowknife
The Binge
The VindaLoo
Anorectic

#Swag
Yaata’s Manifesto
The Front Line
Sixty Seconds
Stalk Time
Mothercare

#RaveScene
Yaata’s Rap
Essentials for Heaven
Cinders Time
My First Half
Class A

#Intersectionality
Yaata’s Prophecy
Self Portrait 1: The Colour of My Skin
Self Portrait 2: Call Me My Name
Mani-Festation
A Wake
Forget and Pretend
Again Becoming
Farewell My Fiend

Yaata’s Epilogue

Acknowledgements
ISBNs: 9781772125108 978-1-77212-510-8 Title: i am still your negro ISBNs: 9781772125191 978-1-77212-519-1 Title: i am still your negro ISBNs: 9781772125337 978-1-77212-533-7 Title: i am still your negro ISBNs: 9781772125344 978-1-77212-534-4 Title: i am still your negro