Dear Editor,
Are Guyanese writers so bad? The statement by Dr David Davydeen on the quality of submissions to Caribbean Press seem to speak more of exasperation and lack of editing resources than of the capacities of the Guyanese literary aspirant.
This is the same country that recently had an overseas based poet, John Agard, win the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. His life mate, Grace Nichols has won the Commwealth Poetry Prize. They each worked at the Chronicle at one time under one of the notable editors in Caribbean history, Mr Carl Blackman, who also nurtured talents like Mohamed Hamaluddin and Sharief Khan. Also, in talent from Guyana, we note Karen King-Aribisala, Commonwealth Prize, and another former Chronicle writer Sharon Maas (Westmaas), who found international commercial success with four or five novels. It is a country that produced Wilson Harris, perpetual Nobel candidate and a novelist whose work I think is mentioned in Harold Bloom’s universal canon of the 1000 best works produced worldwide (along with Walcott and Cesaire from the Caribbean). There is also a long list of women writers from Rajkumari Singh, Mahadai Das, Nirmala Sewcharran, Ryhaan Shah, Janice Lo Shinebourne ‒ grown in and from the country. The above mentioned does not include the several Guyanese winners of Cuba’s Casa Las Americas prize, Guyana Prize, era of Marc Matthews, Henry Mutoo, Ken Corsbie have made for us a name on the regional scene. A lot of succesful playwrights have emerged over the years.
Ours is a culture that in terms of the visual arts offers some of the best in the contemporary Caribbean, from Stanley Greaves and Denis Williams, Aubrey Williams, George Simon, Keith Agard, Jorge Bowen Forbes, plus all the products of the Burrowes School of Arts, and Marjorie Broodhagen, Bernadette Persaud, and all of the wonderful women artists in differing media (Stephanie Correia and people working in ceramic, macramé, or fabric etc). Not only has there been government support, but private collectors like Ras Compton Williams or Hamilton Green and, I just heard, the late Dr Cedric Grant, have supported the artists by purchasing.
All of which is to say that we have had and continue to have a buoyant culture in all of the arts. Including music, where the folk and traditional creation has been replenished and reinterpreted and new work added, in the years since their compilation in the fifties. The previous PNC government, as well as this one, have been sensitive to the arts and even with the competing demands on financial resources leaders from Dr Jagan to Mr Burnham and Mr Hoyte, Mrs Jagan, and Mr Jagdeo, have dedicated money and support to this area of our national life. But there have been, inevitably, lapses, flaws. With the satisfaction that comes with reminiscence we seem to have retained this vision of the National Arts Council of the 1970s as having being particularly visible and effective. It was a decade that generated figures like artist writer Harold Bascom or illustrator-writer Barry Braithwaite. The decade following independence would see a deepening and broadening of artistic creation that would render a visit to Georgetown, at one time, especially interesting, even for its street-sold sculpture strongly identified with the late Omowale Lumumba and others. There were accusations of cliqueism and preferential treatment for Georgetown-based Creole culture. But in general the era of the Pilgrims, Dolphins, AJ Seymour, Lonckes and all the ladies who compiled, composed and performed music of which perhaps our export was Ray Luck was interesting.
Witnesses to these developments would include the particularly insightful Rashid Osman, who was for many years the leading journalist on matters artistic. Alim Hosein and Al Creighton have documented our artistic advancement for years. Nothing leads us to believe we are specialists in the sub-standard.
I therefore find Dr Dabydeen’s observation worrying. Peepal Press seems to have had no problems unearthing writers from Rooplal Monar to Moses Nagamootoo, Dr Roopnaraine and the several talents that transitioned to “discovery” through Jeremy Poynting. For a reason that is hard to find the talent of the contemporaries remain hidden from the managers of Caribbean Press, and one fears that the press is overwhelmed, as is inevitable, by fresh and new talent that needs the technical and artistic support it would have been tasked to provide.
It is possible also that the Press suffers from the low public profile it has lived. The bottom house network which we imagine to be its outlet (but most certainly not the case) may serve as the seine that catches the poetasters that it is forced to throw back in the trench it trawls. There is something dissuasive or basically inefficacious about the operation as it is structured. There are enough writers, and of all political persuasions, to provide a steady stream of publishable work.
It cannot be, as is suspected by some, that a PPP party card or Red House stamp is needed as a prerequisite to submitting acceptable work. The results, without prejudice, may very well be what revolts Dr Dabydeen. We do not want to find in our future a Luncheonesque dismissal of any group stating that they lack the qualities or qualifications to work in this or that area or become publishable. And care must be taken with the treatment and presentation of the disappointments of the Caribbean Press managers. This, in light of the fact that Dr Frank Anthony’s daughter got discovered and published by the imprint. One repeats that the above is no comment on her talents. Just on the way perception is known to shape our approaches and politicise the smallest of events.
Perhaps the outfit needs to be re-organised and the several literary and commercial-administrative talents, to support the enterprise, need to be engaged. Both Drs Anthony and Dabydeen are open, they say, to greater involvement and we hope that their public déclarations will lead to a strengthening of the institution. Commercially it can become another Ian Randle or replace houses like Heinemann or Longman Caribbean, that are dead or dying.
There is, doubtless also, a tradition of doggerel being fabricated here as elsewhere. The presses and media support its flow. It comes with the territory. The work of any medium is to seek out and support the talents we ceaselessly generate.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
