Tag Archives: Guyanese Poet Martin Carter

“This is the Dark Time My Love” by Guyanese Poet Martin Carter

30 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by in Guyana, Poetry

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British soldiers arrive in Georgetown – British Guiana – October 9, 1953
Photo Credit: Stabroek News (Photo British Pathé)

 

My Poetry Corner July 2019 features the poem “This is the Dark Time My Love” by Guyanese poet Martin Carter (1927-1997) from his poetry collection, Poems of Resistance from British Guiana (London 1954). Following the suspension of the British Guiana Constitution in 1953, the poet-politician composed the poems in this collection during his three-month detention, together with other political leaders, by the British Army.

For readers unfamiliar with Guyana’s history, a former British colony until May 26, 1966, slavery ended in 1834. Indentured laborers began arriving from India in 1838 and continued until 1917. Other immigrant workers came from Portuguese Madeira (1835-1882) and China (1853-1879). The population of the colony in the mid-1950s was about 450,000 people (UN estimate).

Born in 1927 in Georgetown, the capital of then British Guiana, to middle class parents of African, Indian, and European ancestry, the young Martin grows up with an appreciation for literature, poetry, and philosophy. After attending the colony’s prestigious Queen’s College, for boys only, he gains entry to the civil service, working first at the post office, then later as the secretary of the superintendent of prisons.

Aware of the oppression and despair of the sugarcane workers who toil under harsh conditions on the British-owned sugar plantations, Carter joins the political struggle for self-governance. In “Looking at Your Hands” (1), he affirms his solidarity with the plantation workers in their shared struggle under British rule. 

No!
I will not still my voice!
I have
too much to claim –
[…]
you must know
I do not sleep to dream
but dream to change the world.  Continue reading →

A Mouth Is Always Muzzled

13 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in Guyana, United States

≈ 7 Comments

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I thank Frank Parker, a former engineer and author of five self-published books who blogs from Ireland at http://franklparker.com/, for nominating me to take up the ‘Three Quotes for Three Days’ challenge.

The rules of the challenge are:

  • Three quotes for three days.
  • Three nominees each day (no repetition).
  • Thank the person who nominated you.
  • Inform the nominees.

Due to time constraints, I will not be posting my quotes on three consecutive days, but rather one a week on Sunday. In keeping with the vision of my blog, I will share quotes from a Guyanese, Brazilian, and an American.

My first quote is taken from the 1969 poem, “A Mouth Is Always Muzzled,” by the social-political Guyanese poet Martin Carter (1927-1997).

But a mouth is always muzzled
by the food it eats to live.

The young Martin Carter came to maturity as a political activist during Guyana’s struggle for independence from Great Britain. While campaigning for the colony’s first mass-based, multi-ethnic, democratically-elected government, the young poet used his street corner meetings to educate his listeners about their social and economic condition and to bring together workers of different ethnicity. Continue reading →

“I Come from the Nigger Yard” – Poem by Martin Carter

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Guyana, Poetry

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Homeless Woman outside Parliament Buildings - Georgetown - GuyanaHomeless Woman outside Parliament Buildings – Georgetown – Guyana
Photo Credit: Mark Jacobs

 

My Poetry Corner January 2015 features the poem “I Come from the Nigger Yard” by Guyanese poet Martin Carter (1927-1997). Following the suspension of the British Guiana Constitution in 1953, the poet-politician composed this poem during his three-month detention, together with other political leaders, by the British Army.

For readers unfamiliar with the history of Guyana, a former British colony until May 1966, slavery ended in 1834. East Indian indentured laborers began arriving from India in 1838 and continued until 1917. Other immigrant workers came from Portuguese Madeira (1835-1882) and China (1853-1879).

In the 1890s, living conditions on the British-owned sugar plantations remained deplorable. Occupying a section of the plantation, the “nigger yard” consisted of crude huts built on low-lying, badly drained land. When the indentured East Indian workers arrived, they lived under similar conditions in logies, barrack-type mud-floor ranges in the “bound-coolie-yard” [Cheddi Jagan, The West on Trial: My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom, 2004, p.30]. Continue reading →

11 September 2001: United in Horror and Grief

11 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by in United States

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11 September 2001 - Survivors of Attack on WTC NYPhoto Credit: Island Crisis Network

 

Around ten o’clock on 11 September 2001, on another dry, hot day in Cascavel, Ceará, Brazil, I was seated in the Meeting Room of the cut-and-sew factory of the finished cow-leather industrial complex. Chairing the meeting with the manager and division supervisors was our Italian Commercial Director. Our discussions were interrupted when his cell phone rang. This was not unusual. Rising from his seat at the head of the table, he backed us to answer the call.

After pacing the floor while he jabbered in Italian, he turned to face us. In broken Portuguese, he spurted in disbelief: “Two airplanes crash into the World Trade Center in New York.” He looked at the factory manager. “We need to watch the news.”

The meeting came to an abrupt halt while the two men went to the Administrative Building in search of a TV set. While the Brazilian staff expressed concern about relatives and friends living in New York, I thought of Guyanese relatives and friends who had left our native land over the years. Time and distance had frayed the bond between us. Not knowing how to contact them, I could only pray for their safety.

At home later that evening, as I watched the news reports and live footage of the terrorist attacks on the USA, I feared that this would be the beginning of a dreaded Third World War when we would obliterate each other with our nuclear bombs.

Twenty-five Guyanese-Americans and three Brazilian-Americans died in the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. More than ninety other nations also lost loved ones that day. Horror and grief united Americans with nations across the globe.

Ten years after Americans lost their sense of security in a violent world, let us remember the lessons that we learned that day and in the years that followed:

    • United with compassion and generosity, we can overcome;
    • Others risked and gave their lives to save our loved ones;
    • We can never be safe when hatred consumes us;
    • We are equal in death and grief;
    • Fighting evil with evil generates more evil;
    • Through our loss and grief, we can better appreciate the gifts of love and life.

I leave you with the last verse of the poem “After One Year” by Guyanese poet, Martin Carter (1927-1997):

Rude citizen! Think you I do not know
that love is stammered, hate is shouted out
in every human city in this world?
Men murder men, as men must murder men,
to build their shining governments of the damned.