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Posted: Feb 07, 2021 8:00 AM AT | Last Updated: February 7
Saint John writer Anna Minerva Henderson, pictured with her graduating class of 1905 at Saint John High School. (Submitted by Saint John High School) comments Grey wharves that know the way of wind and tide, Dim, drifting fog, the sea-gull s plaintive cry, A city, old and assured, wearing the pride Of epic memories and heritage ….
Few poems have so perfectly captured the grit and dignity of Canada s oldest incorporated city.
These lines, titled
Saint John, N.B. become even more remarkable when you learn the author was a Black woman born in 1887.
Anna Minerva Henderson, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a barber, grew up to be an award-winning civil servant and literary pioneer. Black literary critic and Governor General s Award-winning author George Elliott Clarke describes her as the first Black woman in English in Canada to dare to publish a chapbook of verse.