Resolution and Independence 
I was a traveller then upon the moor; . . .
Beside a pool, bare to the eye of heaven
I saw a Man before me unawares:
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. . . .
And him with further words I thus bespake,
“What occupation do you there pursue?
This is a lonesome place for one like you.”
He told, that to these waters he had come
To gather leeches, being old and poor:
Employment hazardous and wearisome!
And he had many hardships to endure:
From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;
Housing, with God’s good help, by choice or chance;
And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.
– William Wordsworth
[Stacy Johnson, Beyond the Breaks, Georgetown, Guyenterprise, 2021. 244pp.]
Another new publication has just been released to join the wide and varied corpus of Guyanese literature. Written by Stacy Johnson and published by Guyenterprise, it is titled Beyond the Breaks. My first response to this text takes me back to the poem by the great romantic William Wordsworth called “Resolution and Independence” because it struck me that the poem articulates perfectly, two of the most enduring themes of Johnson’s narrative.