The poems selected here are gifts to Guyana in celebration of 58 years of independence today, May 26, 2024. As the poems demonstrate, there is no homogeneity, and it is not easy to find definitions for Guyanese independence literature. It is just contemporary Guyanese literature, which is almost as varied as the individual poets and their different preoccupations.
However, one can find a few things to say about the way the selections define or illustrate the contemporary poetry that has emerged after nearly six decades of independence. Literature has moved in several directions, driven by specific factors, including cultural, racial, religious, spiritual, and those influencing the art of writing itself. Today’s poems are a representative mixture of the established: Janet Naidu and Sasenarine Persaud; the fairly new – Ruth Osman; and the younger generation of rising authors of the twenty-first century – Makeda Braithwaite.