Fredericton has been described as a birthplace of Canadian poetry, the hometown of the Confederation poets. Yet, George Elliott Clarke's Execution Poems (2001) radically reconfigures the significance of this provincial capital by exploring questions of Canadian literary identities and the historical absence of black voices as well as the changing cultural landscapes of this city. Execution Poems gives voice to otherwise disenfranchised African Canadians in the Maritimes and thus counters the predominantly Loyalist tone of Maritime literature in the twentieth century and beyond.
