The Halifax Explosion
6 December 1917 at 9:05 in the Morning
- Publisher
- Plumleaf Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2023
- Category
- General, General
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781778242809
- Publish Date
- Oct 2023
- List Price
- $24.95
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 9 to 12
- Grade: 4 to 7
Description
The Halifax Explosion is a poem written by Halifax’s seventh poet laureate, Dr. Afua Cooper. It reveals dramatically what happened on 6 December 1917 at 9:05 when two ships carrying munitions and war supplies collided in the Halifax Harbour. The poem shows the tragic toll the resulting explosion and fire took on the residents of Halifax and the surrounding area, which stretched all the way north to Africville. Dr. Cooper commemorates the Halifax Explosion through verse and highlights the experiences of the Black Haligonians in this disaster. Her powerful words are magnified in this book with dramatic historical photographs and poignant art.
Poetry is movement, poetry is politics, it’s everything. It fires the imagination and so that excites me because in firing the imagination then we produce a new world.
—Dr. Afua Cooper
About the authors
Dr. Afua Cooper is an award-winning historian, author, and poet. She is professor of Black studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Dalhousie University where she holds a Killam Research Chair. Afua has mobilized Black studies in Canada through her scholarly work, and artistic endeavours—this within the academy and beyond. She established the Black Studies program at Dalhousie, first as a minor, and later as part of the leadership team that launched the Bachelor of Arts in Black and African Diaspora Studies. This is the first such program in Canada. Dr. Cooper also founded the Black Canadian Studies Association. She was awarded the Royal Society of Canada’s J.B. Tyrrell Historical medal for her outstanding contribution to Canadian history. Afua is the Principal Investigator for A Black People’s History of Canada project.
Excerpt: The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917 at 9:05 in the Morning (by (author) Afua Cooper; illustrated by Bender Rebecca)
i>The Halifax Explosion is a poem written by Halifax’s seventh poet laureate, Dr. Afua Cooper. It reveals dramatically through powerful images what happened on 6 December 1917 at 9:05 am when two ships, the Mont-Blanc, carrying munitions, and the Imo, carrying war supplies, collided in the Halifax Harbour. The poem shows the tragic toll the resulting explosion and fire took on the residents of Halifax and the surrounding area, which stretched all the way north to Africville. It also shows the personal heroics of many, despite long-term and continuing racism and discrimination suffered by the African Nova Scotian community.
Afua Cooper commemorates the Halifax Explosion through verse and highlights the experiences of the Black Haligonians in this disaster. Her powerful words are magnified in this book with dramatic historical photographs and eloquent art.
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