Review: Sylvia D. Hamilton’s And I Alone Escaped to Tell You

Sylvia D. Hamilton’s And I Alone Escaped to Tell You stuns readers with its beautiful poetry and staggering content. It examines the atrocities faced by early Black Nova Scotians, and the systemic racism and oppression still prevalent today. With strong diction, powerful imagery and an array of poetic forms, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You is a true work of art. Hamilton’s breath-taking intertwining of poetry and historical fact inspires the desire to change amongst her readership, providing an education that motivates atonement.

And I Alone Escaped to Tell You reveals deliberate attempts to frame Canada as a safe haven from slavery, typified by the narrative of the underground railway. Peggy Bristow states “this kind of denial is pervasive throughout Canadian society and continues to present impediments to the development of an African Canadian historiography.” Hamilton’s poems demonstrate that the ‘true north strong and free’ was in fact a slave society that engaged in the selling and trading of African peoples as property, and creates a voice for African Canadians who have had their struggles concealed for generations. For example, she includes, verbatim the following newspaper ad: “On Saturday next, at twelve o’clock, will be sold on the Halifax Beach, two hogshead of rum, three of sugar and two well-grown Negro girls, aged fourteen and twelve, to the highest bidder” (14).

Hamilton interweaves themes of history and memory, grounding overlooked archival material in her poetry. Similar to Shalan Joudry’s Generations Re-Merging, Hamilton tells the story of peoples forcibly ripped from their previous ways of life, and abused by colonial powers. Hamilton educates her readership and evokes emotion through her words:

We had our own names

a past a present.

We worked we loved.

Sang songs to the wind

prayed to our Gods.

We did not know the future

would not be ours (9)

And I Alone Escaped to Tell You exposes readers to uncomfortable truths, offering a narrative that is thought provoking, emotional, and rarely taught in public schools. Sylvia D. Hamilton has made it her life’s work to provide an honest historiography for African Canadians through filmmaking, visual arts, and, with this volume, published poetry. Hamilton’s work is painfully beautiful and truly productive.

Works Cited

Bristow, Peggy, et al. Introduction. We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History. By Bristow. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. 3-12. Print.

Hamilton, Sylvia. And I Alone Escaped to Tell You. Kentville: Gaspereau Press, 2014. Print.

--by Benjamin Lord, with input from Monica Grasse, Sharisse LeBurn, and Molly Strickland.