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I feel lucky to live at a time when the dominant tennis players are Venus and Serena Williams. And to have lived through the success of a whole slew of boxers and feel I could invest emotionally and psychologically in their victories, and identify with them in their struggles.
George Elliott Clarke -
A rural Venus, Selah rises from thegold foliage of the Sixhiboux River, sweepspetals of water from her skin. At once,clouds begin to sob for such beauty.Clothing drops like leaves."No one makes poetry,my Mme.Butterfly, my Carmen, in Whylah,"I whisper. She smiles: "We'll shape it withour souls."Desire illuminates the dark manuscriptof our skin with beetles and butterflies.After the lightning and rain has ceased,after the lightning and rain of lovemakinghas ceased, Selah will dive again into thesunflower-open river.
George Elliott Clarke
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A symbolic victory is still a victory.
George Elliott Clarke -
Donna E. Smyth - adventures with words; she is always doing something new and unique. Beginning with her visceral morality, her stories are startling, nerve wracking, provocative: she combines Angela Carter's beautiful style with Patricia Highsmith's malevolent atmospheres. Smyth shatters clichs and dismisses mere sociology. She knows that pleasure is besieged by terror. She tells us what we don't want to know, but need to know. Smyth's writing disturbs us, enrichingly, because truth can never be at peace with language.
George Elliott Clarke -
I suppose the "dilemma" might come up if I see a black athlete from the U.S. squaring off against a white Canadian athlete. Who do I want to identify with? I certainly will not and cannot say that race determines how I see competition. I'm certainly aware of how race plays into the way others see and portray competition some times, but I don't have to invest in it that way myself. Unless it's boxing.
George Elliott Clarke -
I still think that there's some kind of psychological investment in black athletes carrying the flag for "us" at times. So, sports [remains a] metaphor for struggle and triumph and flair.
George Elliott Clarke -
Sports are never just sports, we all know that. You're always carrying the flag in some way, shape or form.
George Elliott Clarke -
Boxing remains an important living metaphor of the struggle for equality.
George Elliott Clarke
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Redefine the sport in terms of your expertise, in terms of your talent, in terms of your strength, in terms of your flair. Make it interesting. Make it something that people want to watch.
George Elliott Clarke -
The moon twangs its silver strings; The river swoons into town; The wind beds down in the pines, Covers itself with stars.
George Elliott Clarke