On the anniversary of Martin Carter’s death Gemma Robinson reassesses his poetry from the 1950s and its origins during the early years of his marriage to Phyllis Carter.
When Phyllis Carter died earlier this year, her passing was mourned by family and friends around the world. Among the many sorrows provoked, it signalled the final conclusion of a long marriage that had been cut short by her husband’s death in 1997. For the following thirteen years Phyllis had been the generous custodian of Martin Carter’s work, sharing his acts of kindness, principles of co-operation and formidable intelligence. What makes a literary marriage and what are its rewards?
To some it describes the entwined lives of two artists, an intense domestic and working relationship that helps define the literature of a period (think of Suzanne and Aimé Césaire in twentieth-century Martinique or Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre in post-war France). For others it is a partnership of writer and (most often) supporting wife,
