Activity: Recital
Topic: Poetry
Host: Moray House Trust
Date: Tuesday 14th February 2023
Time: 5 PM Guyana
YouTube: https://youtu.be/knghGv1euE0
Poems punctuate our lives. Even today in Guyana, a few lines of poetry are habitually offered to mark life events such as birthdays, weddings and funerals.
However, it’s not always apparent that Guyanese Love Poems. In fact, as AJ Seymour noted in 1980, in his introduction to A Treasury of Guyanese Poetry, poems written in Guyana encounter myriad obstacles to their survival – “fire, flood, the ravages of termites and of damp, the authorized and unauthorized removal of historical records to archives or to personal collections abroad, the small size of editions, the poverty of readers who cannot afford to buy, the carelessness and callous disposal of valuable papers by relatives after one’s decease, the general lack of care and protection of books and journals…”
Nearly half a century later, our poets still routinely self-publish and struggle to find a market for their publications. The writing groups that flourished in earlier times also seem to have dwindled in number and frequency. Perhaps though, as the late Gordon Rohlehr might have said, certain poetic traditions are being submerged in the nation’s memory banks and others are rising to the surface. Slam poetry certainly seems to be enjoying a moment.
The poems featured in the recital are linked loosely to the theme of love – in its broadest sense: love for a significant other, for a parent or child, love of country, love for a higher being. In the course of the recital we will come upon situations where love seems to have been a mirage – shimmering briefly and then disappearing. In others, love endures, though it changes over time. In yet others, love shades into hate and, often, death hovers in the wings, much as it does in real life.
A few of these poems were pre-selected from our Guyanese pantheon of poets. Most have been submitted, in response to our call, by aspiring, hobbyist and occasional poets. In his Introduction, AJ Seymour conjured the “the poetry of Guyana” as “a spirit moving upon the face of the waters, …seeking to create its own identity.” And, even in this small and arbitrary sample of poems, there is evidence of that impulse. Our poets do not speak with one voice. But, as they speak of love, of life, of the land we share in common, there are echoes, points of convergence, enough, arguably to detect both a poetic pulse (a spirit) and contours of style and form.
Warm thanks then to the poets who persevere, to the readers and, once again, to Stanley Greaves for providing the music to accompany the recital. This has been a collaborative effort.
Event: Poetry Recital
Date: Tuesday 14th February 2023
Time: 5 PM Guyana
YouTube: https://youtu.be/knghGv1euE0
