Grace of Centuries

A celebration of Black voices across centuries and continents. Grace of Centuries is an act of redress. Beginning with the African presence in the Bible and travelling through inheritances both collective and personal, Hope Anderson ranges from Bilali Muhammad, Queen Nzinga, and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges to Gannibal, John Ware, and Phillis Wheatley – to name just a few. With this book Anderson comes back to Canadian poetry, rejoining such icons as Daphne Marlatt, Fred Wah, and Anderson’s friend, the late, great bpNichol, to whom this book pays tribute. In poems of historical complexity, Grace of Centuries demonstrates the value of a language that speaks to all.