Category Archives: Poets & Writers

On the Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence Day: A Tribute to Stanley Greaves

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Guyana, Poets & Writers

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Ground Birds - Shadows Series - Stanley GreavesGround Birds by Stanley Greaves from his Shadows Series
Acrylics on Canvas scroll. 102 x 76 cm.
Source: http://marukadc.com/galleryGreaves.html

 

On Guyana’s forty-seventh anniversary as an independent nation, I would like to celebrate our achievements and pay tribute to a son of Guyana: Stanley Greaves. An artist, sculpture, poet, and classical guitarist, he defines himself as “a maker of things.”

Born in 1934 in a tenement yard in Georgetown, Greaves was in his thirties at the birth of our nation. He describes life in the tenement yard as a vibrant community… with its own dramas among the families that lived there. He came from a family who were good at making things. His paternal grandfather was an upholsterer and cabinet maker from Barbados. His father made their own furniture. As a young boy, Greaves made things with whatever he could find: empty matchboxes, cigarette boxes, bits of string, wire, empty boot-polish tins. (Interview with Anne Walmsley of BOMB Magazine in Winter 2004.)

In his teens, Greaves began painting and developed his art at the Working Peoples’ Art Class (1948-1961). He later trained in the United Kingdom (1963-1968) and the United States (1979-1980). During his years back home in Guyana, he served as an art teacher and spent twelve years at the University of Guyana as head of the Creative Arts Division. Then in 1987, he left to reside in Barbados.

Recognition only came after years of work. In 1994, Greaves’ triptych of paintings, There Is a Meeting Here Tonight, won a Gold Medal at the Santo Domingo Biennales of Painting. Thenceforth, his acclaim grew within the Caribbean Region and beyond.

Greaves’ first poetry collection, Horizons: Selected Poems 1969-1998, was published by Peepal Tree Press, UK, in 2002. His second collection, The Poems Man, came out in 2009.

In Horizons, two political poems remain relevant today. Written in 1976, “To Politicians” brought to mind the vision of the founding fathers of our nation in 1966 to mold One People, One Nation, One Destiny.

A vortex of language, / seductive words of power / corrupt the tongue. / But words must leap fresh / – luminous lukanani in a pool. / Words must hit the air / – cosmic vibrations / of the gallant bell-bird. / Words must secure visions.

In “Knees” (1998), Greaves expresses hope that the people will someday bring to their knees politicians who accept words dangerous to truth.

Streets will sound to marching knees / Parents will dream for their children / and all will be right, perhaps, / in that dream if not this, / where knees of a weary people / threaten petty politics.

Greaves’ art has transformed over the years. His more recent Shadow Series explore the realm of shadows that lies beyond the second and third dimensions. To learn more, you can watch his Interview with Derrice Deane of CaribNation Television in 2011.

After forty-seven years as a developing nation, Guyana remains a shadow of its true potential. Unable to come together as One People, we are afraid to walk towards the Sun with confidence to achieve Our Destiny as a great nation…for all.

American Friend of the Heart

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in Poets & Writers, Relationships, United States

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Palisades Park – Santa Monica – Southern California (www.tripadvisor.in)

“Just enjoy your foot,” the uncle said with a laugh. “Enjoy your foot in life. You don’t need to ask questions. Just enjoy.”  ~Excerpt from “A Little Balinese White Magic” by Rich Samson, Los Angeles, May 2009.

 

Sometimes, a person joins us for a short time on our journey along a footpath, giving us the confidence to keep moving forward. Rich Samson, a gentle soul, was such a person in my journey as a writer.

We met on 4 April 2009 when the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (GLAWS) started its Literary and Mainstream Fiction Critique Group. During introductions, I perked up when Rich mentioned the Peoples Temple. It was one of those weird coincidences. At the time, I was working on a short story, set in my native land, Guyana, about the Jonestown mass suicide-murder.

On April 16, in response to my first e-mail, Rich wrote: “I was moved by your reference to the Jonestown Massacre… Obviously, those tragedies from 30 plus years ago touched us both.” In San Francisco, where he lived at the time, he had followed media reports about Jim Jones’ rise to power in California.

Thereafter, Rich and I shared and critiqued each other’s work. After reading my five short stories published by the Guyana Journal, he wrote: “Generally speaking, I really enjoy your writing style and feel that your stories are a good influence on me and my writing aspirations.” For me, the footpath became less obscure.

On May 5, we met at Starbucks in downtown Culver City to discuss his novella, 8 Mos. in the Haight – set in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the period January to September 1972, when, as an aspiring young actor, he had joined the hippie community. Rich needed direction for the revision process.

On May 26, Rich e-mailed me his short story, “A Little Balinese White Magic.” He wrote that my Guyanese folkloric short stories had brought to mind “an unbelievable healing experience” he had had during a business trip to Bali, Indonesia, many years earlier. After presenting the story to our critique group in June 2009, he read the opening scene during the Open Mic session of our GLAWS Annual Summer Pot-Luck Party in August. His performance was animated. He had crossed a threshold.

Rich submitted Chapter One of his Haight novella for critique at our September group meeting. On October 5, he forwarded Chapter Two for our group meeting later that month. When he did not show up, I followed up with an e-mail on October 25. I did not receive his usual prompt reply. As his silence stretched out over the next two weeks, I knew that something was amiss.

My affliction grew. On awakening November 18 – the anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre – I turned on my desktop computer and googled his name.

RICH SAMSON: OBITUARY

SAMSON, Rich. West Hollywood resident Rich Samson died unexpectedly in his sleep at his home on October 7, 2009. He was 57. He graduated from Palm Springs High School in 1970 and attended Cal State LA and Foothill College. During the past seven years he worked in the real estate business in Los Angeles. Mr. Samson, who was married twice, is survived by three siblings and five nephews.

No photo confirmed that this was Rich, my writing friend. No contact information to share my joy and sorrow with a brother I had come to know through Rich’s writing. Through Rich’s stories, I met the people and shared the moments that had mattered to him on his journey through life.

He left unexpectedly. But during the short time we worked together, he gave me the confidence I needed to move forward with my novel. My hope is that the time he had spent writing were moments of joy and clarity towards the end of his journey.

On the Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence Day: Guyanese-born Poets Etch our Nation’s Journey in Verse

27 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Guyana, Poets & Writers

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Guyana Independence Arch – Georgetown – Guyana

“Monument to Freedom” unveiled on 22 May 1966, a gift from the Demerara Bauxite Company (DEMBA) to the people of Guyana on their independence.

Source: flickriver.com (arichards gallery)

 

On 26 May 2012, Guyana celebrated forty-six years as an independent nation. I recall well that night of 25 May 1966 when I stood with my family amidst the crowd in the Queen Elizabeth Park (later renamed National Park), watching the grand cultural performances to commemorate our independence from Great Britain. Just before the big moment at midnight, the crowd gasped in surprise. Our Prime Minister Forbes Burnham and his political rival and former Premier Cheddi Jagan unexpectedly embraced each other. Emotions ran deep.

The lights dimmed and wrapped us in silence. As the band intoned “God Save the Queen,” I watched the Union Jack slip down the flagpole while our new Golden Arrowhead climbed to the top where it unfurled to loud cheers and a gun salute. The sky exploded with the greatest display of fireworks I had ever seen, depicting Kaieteur Falls and the face of our Prime Minister. Great pride surged through my young veins. Our nation was born.

Syble G. Douglas in her commemorative poem “Independence (May 26, 1966)” expressed our joy:

At last Guyana is born / out of travail – strife and tears  / comes the new nation…

She then described the work that lay ahead to build a new Guyana.

Francis Yvonne Jackson in “Garden Paradise” also shared the joy of our achievement:

The Golden Arrowhead symbolic of our nation / Coconut trees whispering songs of hope, / Sending messages to the universe / Grasshoppers are hopping, / And lizards are crawling/… Roaring sounds of Kaieteur Falls awake masacuraman / Scaring the jumbie / Frightening the Canje Pheasant / Awaking my soul.

In the innocence of my youth, I believed that we could all work together and share in the wealth of our nation. I shared Mahadai Das’ dream expressed in her poem, “Looking Over the Broad Breast of the Land I Saw a Dream”:

I saw fields of fertility / Fields fed by the rain / Fields fed by the sun / Chimneys rising to worship the sun… / Children laughing in the sun, / Girls strewing their dreams with flowers;…

But our dream of forging “One Nation, One People, One Destiny” still eludes our young nation as we persist in emulating the errors of the past. Different leaders, same policies of our former colonial masters: divide and rule.

The young poet, Samuel Singh, in his poem “Unrecognized,” lamented:

This I do know; / yesterday’s Elysium is / today’s purgatory is / tomorrow’s underworld. / Heaven or hell / it is Guyana. / The drink / trembles in my hand, / drunkenness / soothes my mind. / I understand this land / less today / than yesterday / unrecognizable tomorrow.

In “My Native Land,” Francis Yvonne Jackson called attention to:

The haves away from the have-nots / a country of ethnic differences / Crime, drugs, political controversy, / The upsurge of violence / Not the Guyana I once knew / The young in a wilderness / Hoping for their Guyana / a better tomorrow…

The words of our beloved and world-renowned poet Martin Carter, in “Listening to the Land,” are still sadly relevant to our times:

I bent down / listening to the land / but all I heard was tongueless whispering…/ the old brick chimney barring out the city / the lantern posts like bottles full of fire / and I bent down / listening to the land / and all I heard was tongueless whispering / as if some buried slave wanted to speak again.

As Guyana celebrates its 46th anniversary of independence, let us remember the struggles and sacrifices of our ancestors – the slaves from Africa, followed by waves of indentured laborers from India, China, and Madeira – who forged our nation. Also, let us ponder on the simple truth of our existence: that regardless of our color or race, we are all the same. Gary Girdhari expressed this well in “Faces”:

Faces / Black, brown, white / All shades / All races… / Faces, faces, faces, faces / Everywhere you turn / The more you learn / There is no real difference among races.

A nation divided cannot withstand the vagaries of time in a world of giants.

 

POEMS CITED IN ARTICLE TAKEN FROM THE FOLLOWING POETRY COLLECTIONS:

Carter, Martin, Poems by Martin Carter, Edited by Stewart Brown & Ian McDonald, Macmillan Caribbean Writers Series, UK, 2010.

Das, Mahadai, A Leaf in His Ear, Peepal Tree Press Ltd., UK, 2010.

Douglas, Syble G., Transition: Poems Old & New, Georgetown, Guyana, 2008.

Girdhari, Gary, if only the gods were awake, Guyana Journal Publication, New York, USA, 2011.

Jackson, Francis Yvonne, Come Walk With Me: From Guyana to North America A Book of Verses, Illinois, USA, 2010.

Singh, Samuel, My Voice, Author House, Indiana, USA, 2007.