Copper Woman

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’s doctoral dissertation on Henry Bibb is a pioneering work on the life of the 19th-century abolitionist. She teaches African-Canadian history at the University of Toronto and is co-author of ＂We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up＂: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History (University of Toronto Press, 1994). In February 2002, Afua curated ＂A Glimpse of Black Life in Victorian Toronto: 1850-1860＂ for the City of Toronto Museum Division. An award-winning poet, her fifth book of poetry, Copper Woman and Other Poems, is being published by Natural Heritage in the spring of 2006. Her most recent book is The Hanging of Angelique: Canada, Slavery and the Burning of Montreal, published by HarperCollins Canada in January 2006.