Interrogating the poetry of B Germain Reynolds

The cover of Midnight Musings

Ships that met                   

 

I looked up one day

And in he walked

A tall man with seeing

Eyes.

 

The room was dark,

The air unclear,

My vision had dimmed,

My thinking schooled.

 

He searched, he found

He asked, he spoke,

He thought, he fixed,

He hated, he changed.

 

I stood up one day

And out he sailed

The tall man with seeing

Eyes.

-B. Germain Reynolds

 

Washerwoman

 

Her arms are fat, her back is broad

Her feet are wet and poorly shod.

Diamonds glitter in her eyes, the sparkle of clean

Sheets and shirts, brighter than they have ever been

Washerwoman, washerwoman, scrubbing away.

 

The sun is her best friend, rain her foe,

Load upon load, stubborn stains her only woe.

Her duty is dull, her triumph is meek

The same subjects will be back next week.

Washerwoman, washerwoman, day after day.

 

Sometimes she hums, low and intense,

Singing words out loud, would make no sense,

Her charges do not hear, do not see or hear

And using up her air would make her task harder to bear

Washerwoman, washerwoman, with little to say.

 

She stops for a break, admiring the breeze,

Making sails and flags of her work with ease

In her mind, dances the idea of a machine master

That would do what she does – only faster

Washerwoman, washerwoman, you led the way.

-B. Germain Reynolds

 

[B. Germain Ryenolds, Midnight Musings, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: RoseDog Books, 2004]

[B. Germain Reynolds, Songs I Sing, Meadville, Pennsylvania: Fulton Books, 2020]

It is very instructive to keep in touch with contemporary Guyanese poets and poetry. Getting a good idea of what the output is like is not very easy to do at one glance because there is a wide range of writers both at home and abroad, many of whom are not in very wide circulation. It is, at any rate, quite interesting to see a sample of this work from different communities of poets.