Illuminated Verses – Ricardo Scipio Artist

The Collaboration

In 2005, George Elliott Clarke and Ricardo Scipio made a book together in honour of Black women. Clarke, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2001 for Execution Poems, wrote the poems. Scipio made the photographs. Published in Toronto, Illuminated Verses runs to 74 pages of poetry and photography in conversation.

In the foreword, Scipio looks back on a formative decade of fashion photography in New York and Toronto. The pages that follow are given to Black women, seen with dignity and honoured in verse. The book was launched at the Vancouver Public Library in 2005. Reviewing it, the Coast Reporter ran the headline: “Illuminated Verses shows respect for black women.”

Ricardo Scipio has worked for forty years as an independent photographer and filmmaker. Illuminated Verses marked its twentieth anniversary in 2025 and now enters its third decade in print. Twenty years on, that respect is still on every page.

Original First Edition Cover

Illuminated Verses Book Cover — Poetry by George Elliott Clarke, Photography by Ricardo Scipio

First Edition • Toronto, 2005 • 74 Pages

The Foreword

Our Black Woman

Foreword by Ricardo Scipio

“Black queen of Beauty,
Thou hast given colour to the world.” — Marcus Garvey

Every human being who has walked this Earth has a Black mother. She is the original woman, the channel, the source.

I was fortunate enough to have grown up surrounded by Black women in my native island of Trinidad and in the Caribbean enclaves in Scarborough, Ontario, in the 70s and 80s. From a time before I can remember, I have had my breath taken away by the staggering beauty, nobility, and power of our Black women, starting with my own wonderful mother.

For a decade, beginning in 1986, I worked as a fashion photographer in Toronto, New York, and Miami. It pained me constantly to witness how little respect the mainstream media has for natural Black beauty. I was allowed so few times to photograph Black women in a context of respect and sensitivity that I decided to quit the fashion industry forever and become an art photographer, to create images of natural beauty.

In my mind right now, I am back at church, at 10 years old, watching one of the women beating her chest while wailing out loud for the Lord to give her strength. Her tears and sweat have already soaked her homemade dress. While I stare at her transfixed, she raises her big arms up to heaven in triumph. She is beatific. After nine years and 14 gallery shows of my Black nudes, I know that, if I could only capture a fraction of that woman’s beauty, my life’s work as a photographer would be accomplished.

Ricardo Scipio • 2005

Exhibition Dialogue • Poetry and Photography

Africa — Fine Art Photography by Ricardo Scipio

Africa • Photograph by Ricardo Scipio (Page 14)

Poem by George Elliott Clarke (Page 13)

I — Daughter of Music

A style lights upon her— Daughter of Music, Beauty defining living song— Negro, Creole, Criollo. Don’t she feelingly compose sinuous woodwind, imperious brass, her voice coaxing Oaxaca, cocoa smokiness, her eyes lilting gold-ochre copper? Her form mimics fluid fire— sunlight breaking open, flaking, upon water, our African Atlantic, all saltwater taffy and masala molasses. A style lights upon her— she who broke from barracoon, swam from barracuda, clambered over barricades… Amid pining leaves and ganja jungles, she augurs Joy, matrix of song.

— George Elliott Clarke

Sisters — Fine Art Photography by Ricardo Scipio

Sisters • Photograph by Ricardo Scipio (Page 44)

Poem by George Elliott Clarke (Page 43)

III — Blues & Jazz

Blues: Catch the anxious drift of glances on my face, Cross my breasts like succulent, indigo water, Down my turquoise hair, or riding my blue spine. My colour makes Beauty feel good, this good. Jazz: Your blackness calls back now The Supremes, Or James Brown wailing, falling, wailing again, Blue-black tunes, two purple lips mauving night. Any dark fingers fixing your hair, also fix a ballad, A blues for sun-scorched skin, an ochre orchard, A song for you—Black, choice, delectable, all that. Blues: A man’s a monster with knives in his veins, A piranha smile; shark instincts for brains. Jazz: It is women who open The gates to Canaan or Eden.

— George Elliott Clarke

Leap — Fine Art Photography by Ricardo Scipio

Leap • Photograph by Ricardo Scipio (Page 72)

Poem by George Elliott Clarke (Pages 70–71)

II — Dona Beatrice

Now, you rise perpetually from History’s dry, fallen leaves, as a dancer slips from her robes… Lanterns are your eyes when I seek that Paradise exiles lionize.

— George Elliott Clarke

Wait — Fine Art Photography by Ricardo Scipio

Wait • Photograph by Ricardo Scipio (Page 60)

Poem by George Elliott Clarke (Page 59)

I — Anastacia

Ms. Mocha Immaculate, you articulate our aches: The gilded elegance of your guiltless eloquence glints, Setting fire to paper and to the poets paper makes. Song goes mad beside you, when I’m beside you, in bed, And we mesh like two sunbeams pollinating blossoms… Anastacia, you’s as bold As gold—no gibberish, no rigmarole! Your pure, Parisian Perfumes transfigure Light— like Dead Sea scrolls unrolled.

— George Elliott Clarke

Reflection — Fine Art Photography by Ricardo Scipio

Reflection • Photograph by Ricardo Scipio (Page 66)

Poem by George Elliott Clarke (Page 65)

IV — Anastacia

Butterflies—an ochre choir— plus scared, amber lizards, clambering banana trees, shiver in light— ivory, lime, ivy, lemon, amid a parliament of perfumes… Anastacia’s mirror shivers, melts, to tender her reflection. The tilting lilt of bangles— angling ankles or listing on wrists— is lyrical as a gal undresses, goes naked as amaryllis, or sashays in a sari, her luscious shush of silk echoing some pacific beehive…

— George Elliott Clarke

Critical Reception & Press

“Illuminated Verses shows respect for black women… A collaboration of two mediums is always exciting. In this case, the book has combined the work of an award-winning scholar and author, the Canadian black poet George Elliott Clarke, with the fine art nude photos of Scipio. The result is stunning… Scipio has given the photos a soft look, shot in natural light in the outdoors, on beaches and among trees. Oddly, the soft touch only makes the women seem stronger and more real. This is a book driven by its photos.”

— Jan DeGrass, Coast Reporter Review

“Illuminated Verses is a series of jazzy poetry improvisations on the sensuous colour photos by Ricardo Scipio… A striking celebration combining the work of an award-winning poet and an exceptional visual artist.”

— The Halifax Chronicle Herald

“Scipio’s images act as a landscape to the poet’s ‘wordscape,’ and the admixture creates a delectable form of sights and sounds. The combination produces a beautiful melody in the spheres… They evoke visual, tactile and passionate sensations that reverberate throughout the spheres and lift the reader to higher poetic planes.”

— Dr. H. Nigel Thomas, Canadian Ethnic Studies

“George Elliott Clarke is one of Canada’s most ebullient writers, and love lyrics are Clarke at his most fun and vibrant—check out Illuminated Verses, where poetry meets visual art in cities of refuge.”

— The Globe and Mail