Ian on Sunday

One of the things I used to enjoy the most was to browse in good book stores and buy a stock of books to read and add to my library.

When I was young I often used to sit in the evening with an old aunt while she told her rosary beads.

Having worked 52 years in the sugar industry, including working closely with Governments and regional institutions along the way, if there is one thing I have learned it is the extreme frailty of all grand plans.

The best words for Christmas are from T.S. Eliot’s marvelous poem, “The journey of the Magi.”

I last worked in the Guyana Sugar Industry in 1999 – though I continued in sugar as CEO of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean until 2007 – so I do not pretend to understand Guysuco’s current challenges and have no intention of second-guessing the executives now tackling its challenges.

There are times my wife and I go up the great Essequibo to stay at the beautiful river-home of my brother-in-law and his wife.

The love of games is woven into the fabric of my life.

Two impulses contend in me – one is to allow chaos to take hold and the other is to keep everything tidy and in good order.

Our lives of such infinite value come and go in a whirl of busyness. 

I make visits up the great Essequibo to rest the body, refresh the mind and remind the soul of the beauty in this world.

I do not think the intelligent and opened-minded Minister of Education minds me delivering little, well-meant lectures to her from time to time.

It is necessary to repeat again and again that in the background of all our lives there exists a fundamental and dominating lie.

In my home, a step down off the dining room, overlooking the beautiful garden my wife has created, I have my studiolo. 

I thank whatever Gods that be that even at the age of 89 my mind remains restless and eager to absorb new facts, new theories, new ways of looking at life and the world, new stories of mankind’s continual search for perfected knowledge, new illuminations of the spirit.

Giacomo Leopardi, who was to become one of the greatest poets of his time, was born in 1798 on his parents’ estate near the small Italian town of Recanati in the dusty hills above the Adriatic sea.

At thirteen, I think it was, I was reading love poetry.

Most of a New Year has passed away. This seems astonishing to me.

“Most things never happen: this one will”.  Poets write more frequently about death than any other subject, except possibly love.

I tell the story of Tony Judt. Tony Judt was a writer on recent world history whom I greatly admired. 

For many years I have been gradually collecting poems written about Guyana or by Guyanese from as early as possible to the present day for the purpose of preparing and publishing an entirely new and comprehensive Anthology of Guyanese Poetry.