It is within the context of a poignant, profound and perhaps
arcane ritual imagination that we encounter John Pepper Clark in his literary
world as evidenced by the evocative power of his primal poetic and dramatic
compositions. Especially so are some of the early works such
as Song of a Goat through Ozidi,
the ‘middle’ The Boat, The Return Home, Full
Circle, Casualties and the later Remains of a Tide.
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| *JP Clark |
His only known work of prose the
semi-autobiographical and bitingly sarcastic America their
America, at once immediate in content and prophetic in thematic concern
exists outside this ontology of ritual and the mythic imagination. Almost to the letter (or depth) of contemporary effusions from Trumpian America,
this work captures the supercilious arrogance of white America and victims of
racial disharmony narrated after a personal encounter with the programmed
academy of American culture, capitalism and sociology which our young and
bristling JP had found condescending and utterly restrictive.
