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A Most Enduring Legacy by NIYI OSUNDARE The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. ISSUE SIX/2001 A Most Enduring Legacy BY NIYI OSUNDARE ARTIN Carters poetry made a thunderous entry into collection ol essays and tributes by eminent progressive literary circles in Nigeria in the late 70's. Its arrival ligurcs in Caribbean literature and culture on eouldn t have been more apt. more timely. The country, libe and to one of the world's most important. most others in Africa was reeling in the maelstrom ol "post- but most neglected poets. The richness of this independence disillusionment", and the neo-colonial book, the caliber and diversity of the arrangement which precipitated this condition was contributors, arc themselves a measure of the undergoing severe analysis and interrogation. awesome respect with which Carter is held, University curricula were being decolonized, and the continuing relevance of his vision the reading lists were being updated and All Arc Involved is organized in seven made more relevant, more responsive to sections: "The Necessary Contexts": "The indigenous needs. An exciting radicalization Literary Contexts": "Reading the Poems": spread through Nigerian academe, beginning "Recollections by Martin Carter's most fervently with the Humanities and the Contemporaries"; "Martin Carters Impact Social Sciences. and Influence Upon Younger Writers": Tired of the "Wasteland" pessimism of IS. "Obituaries"; "Bibliography" In the Eliot, repelled by the fascist leanings of Ezra Introduction. Stewart Brown places Carter Pound, and the formalist tinkering of most alongside other great poets such as Cesaire. 20"' century verse which had little or no Brathwaite. Walcott, GuIIien. whose works bearing on the post-independence African chronicle the Black journey from slavery, condition, many Nigerians started craving lor through colonialism to independence. Like "alternative" voices and visions. To be sure, all great poets. Carter never abandoned his there was the home-grown anti-colonial "concern for craft" (p.8), his "commitment verse of Agostinho Neto. Antonio Jacinto and to place and truth", and to "social justice others, but this was mostly in Portuguese, a beyond the contagion of radical politics language not accessible to the majority of (p. 12). But his was the "fiercely intelligent, Africans. sternly poetic sensibility" (p. 10) which never There was also the lively experimentation received the kind of critical attention it so of Okot p'Bitek in East Africa, but his songs richly deserved. were considered too neo-traditional for the Two solid contributions take up "The radical project at hand. Only David Diop. the Necessary Contexts: History and Politics" highly gifted and revolutionary poet (who section: Clem Seecharan's "The Shape of the unfortunately died in an air crash at a young Passion: the Historical Context of Martin age) provided a rallying song within the Carter's Poetry of Protest (1951-1964)". and African continent. But again, he wrote in Rupert Roopnaraine's "Martin Carter and French and many of us had to be content with Politics." Both demonstrate intimate whatever portion of his works came to us in knowledge of Martin Carter the person, the English translation. The soul-lifting poetry of poet, and the politician and the Edward Kamau Brathwaite came later, as did interrelatedness of these roles. Seecharan the fiery verse of Amiri Baraka. But it was the provides an impressive history of the politics poetry of Martin Carter that provided the of Guyana, locating Carter in that history: his most immediate, most direct song for the political alliances, first with Cheddy Jagan. barricades. "The University of Hunger" and then Forbes Burnham. and his many of his other poems passed from hand disillusionment with both of them; his to hand and from lip to lip. These poems were navigation through the racism-infested so lyrical, so relevant that many of us began waters of Guyanese politics; his mission as to wonder why we hadn't known their author one of those "people who had freed their much earlier. We also yearned for more minds and were determined to free their knowledge about the political career and country" (p.28); and the several ways the personal circumstances of Martin Carter, the Stewart Brown (ed.) vicissititudes of Guyanese politics reflected author of these remarkable songs. We waited in the change in the voice of the poet, even ALL ARE INVOLVED: for many years without a satisfactory answer. as it went from the euphoria of the early THE ART OF MARTIN But the appearance early this year of All stages to the self doubt of the middle, and CARTER. Peepal Tree Are Involved: the Art of Martin Carter has the "Despair and bitter Hope" (p.37) of the Press. UK, 2000, put an end to that waiting. Painstakingly last. Seecharan highlights the genuine 413 pp. edited by Stewart Brown, this is a valuable passion of Carter's commitment and his Glendora Books Supplement ISSUE SIX/2001 << abiding integrity, a virtue given equal pessimism — a reading which seems to find articulation by Roopnaraine for whom Carter an unstated refutation in Stanley Greaves' "A was a "seefeer of truth in an era of Vision of Land and Landscape in the Poems degradation" (48), a man who "educated us of Martin Carter". Brathwaite's second essay, into the habit of thinking and proposed for "Martin Carter's poetry of the Negative Yes" our consideration a politics of decency is a fascinating study of Carter's "perception rooted in the moral sense" (p.55). of self and the world" (p.201) and the The section on "Literary Contexts" dialectical parameters of his engagement complements the historical and political with Caribbean reality. background provided in the preceding Stephen Stephanides' "The Dislocated section by delving into the broad conceptual Idiom of Martin Carter" and Gordon and critical contexts of Carter's poetry. Ivan Rohlehr's "'Assassins of the Voice': Martin Van Sertima in "From Astride Two Visions'" Carter's Poems of Affinity 1978-1980" tabes us through the fiery enthusiasm of the examine the relationship between language early Cheddy Jagan days, the way the later and (enforced) silence, the former exploring political atmosphere was poisoned by the the status of language as a "dialogue between "unbending extremism of Jagan" and the two polarities — desire and time, self and "private ambition of Burnham" (p.60), and history" (p.22l), and the latter seeing the how Carter's poetry was influenced by these "perversion of the word" as prelude to events. Louis James ("The Necessity of "perversion of thought and deed, and Poetry") calls attention to the "cleansing ultimately to subservience and degradation indignation" (p.67) behind Carter's poetry, of spirit" (p. 184). Carter's struggle to re-locate while Samuel Asein situates his poetic the idiom and protect it from decay practice within "The 'Protest' Tradition in constitutes a vital aspect of the "undying, West Indian Poetry." Jeffrey Robinson human spirit of resistance" (p.95) that Frank concludes this section with his exploration Birbalsingh celebrates in "Martin Carter's of "The Guyaneseness of Guyanese Writing," Earliest Poetry." Also noteworthy in this and how Carter's poetry falls within the form section are the linguistic-stylistic perspectives and spirit of this geographical genre while on Carter's poetry in A.J. Seymour's "A helping to define it. Commentary on Two Poems" and Barbara By far the longest of the sections, Lalla's "Conceptual Perspectives on Time and "Reading the Poems" boasts twenty-one Timelessness in Martin Carter's 'University contributors, each with a remarkable of Hunger"'. No defense of Carter as a perspective on Carter's poetry and poetics. political poet could have been more Kamau Brathwaite has two entries here: the eloquent, more erudite, more passionate, first, "Resistance Poems: the Voice of Martin than Eusi Kwayana's "The Politics of the Carter", tabes a dispassionate loob at Carter's Heart" with its aphoristic clincher: "Martin poetry, identifying the poet's lacfe of direct Carter is a deeply political poet; this is embrace of Guyanese physical and socio- another way of saying a deeply human poet" cultural landscape as a factor in the (p. 168). Kwame Dawes, Gemma Robinson, "reversion to sympathetic models" (p.40) and Nigel Westmaas close this section with largely responsible for his slide into Yeatsian contributions on different aspects of Carter's prose. The section on "Recollections by Martin Carters Contemporaries" features major co- witnesses to the Caribbean dream and some of the interpreters of that dream: Wilson Harris, Jan Carew, John La Rose, Janet Jagan, Anne Walmsley etc. But the two most revealing contributions come from Dereb Walcott in an interview with David Dabydeen, and George Lamming with Stewart Brown. Great authors themselves, they both profess their admiration for Carter's poetry, while proffering their guesses as to why such good poetry "hasn't attracted foreign publishers" (p.309). Absolutely quotable here is Walcott's robust vote of confidence in West Indian literature, and Martin Carter: "West Indian literature even in English is totally underestimated, totally (Walcott's emphasis). Martin Carter ftendora Books Supplement ISSUE SIX/2001 The literature is astonishing, the quality is posthumous perspective, with Eusi Kwayana astonishingly high. And Martins position in Ian Macdonald. Mcrvyn Morris. Vanda all of this is special" (p.310) Radzik, and Ken Ram< hand sounding the lasi The distinguished multitude in the trumpet tor the poet who "binds tdgether by section titled 'Martin Carter's Impact and passion and knowledge the vast empire of Influence Upon Younger Writers" is an human society " (p.374).
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