Afua (Ava Pamela) Cooper, educator, historian, performance artist, poet (born 8 November 1957 in the Whithorn district of Westmoreland, Jamaica), is considered one of the most influential and pioneering voices in the Canadian dub poetry and spoken word movement. Her poems are published in numerous regional, national and international journals and anthologies. Afua Cooper also has CDs of her performances that make her work well known to the global community. In addition to her renown as a performance artist, she is an internationally-ranked historian. She has taught Caribbean cultural studies, history, women’s studies and Black studies at Ryerson and York universities, at the University of Toronto and at Dalhousie University.
Early Life and Education
Afua Cooper is one of nine children — five sisters and three brothers. Her parents are Ruth Campbell Cooper and Edward Cooper. In 1966, she moved from Westmoreland to Kingston to live with her aunt, Elfleda Campbell. She attended St. Michael’s All-Age School in Rae Town. Cooper then attended Camperdown High School (East Kingston) from the age of 12 where she was a founding member of the African Studies Club. Graduating in 1975, Afua Cooper was by then a Rastafarian, and she spent the year living with dub poet Mutabaraka and his wife, Yvonne Peters. In 1979–80, she went to teach at Vauxhall Secondary School, after earning a teaching diploma from Excelsior Community College. She later moved to Canada in December 1980 during a period of great political unrest throughout Jamaica (1979‒80).
Career Path
Afua Cooper’s initial residency in Canada involved work as an instructor at Bickford Park High School in Toronto. While teaching, she began to perform her poetry at a variety of Toronto’s spoken word spaces such as Fall Out Shelter, Strictly Ital and Trojan Horse. Shortly thereafter, Cooper joined Gayap Riddim Drummers as resident poet and percussionist, touring Canada with a brand of poetry infused with womanist perspectives and contemporary social commentary. (Womanism, while similar to feminism, designates a movement that arose in response to racial and gender-based oppression experienced by women of colour.)
Cooper also was performing with major dub poets Lillian Allen, Clifton Joseph and Devon Haughton during a period described by some cultural critics as a “black cultural renaissance.” Her first book of poetry, Breaking Chains was published in 1983, concurrent with her enrollment in the African Studies and Women’s Studies programs at the University of Toronto.
Article is an excerpt from The Canadian Encyclopedia https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/afua-cooper