This started with a comment from my friend Henry Muttoo, the theatre whiz, following a piece of poetry by Louise Bennett I had sent him. Henry, who has strong opinions in artistic matters, was complaining that the work of our earlier stellar creative people, such as the late Madame Louise, was not getting the attention it deserves. It’s a dereliction I run into here frequently, sometimes from very unexpected quarters, and what is particularly striking is that this lack of attention is in all the disciplines, not just poetry, and there are many aspects to it.
In the first place, it is not a selective thing. Nobody is singled out, or made the subject of accolades. It’s not as if we ignore Edgar Mittleholzer, but we pump up Rudolph Dunbar or Ray Luck or Bill Rogers. We ignore them all. Furthermore, the totality is regional. You don’t see many persons bigging up Louise Bennett, or Peter Minshall, or George Lamming, or Aubrey Williams. You mention Jamaica Kincaid, and they think she’s from Kingston. In other words, these contributors are simply not on the radar. I went into Austin’s bookstore recently to ask for a book of Louise’s poems, and the sales lady, a mature woman, had no clue what – never mind who – I was talking about. Furthermore, it’s not just the arts. In Guyana, with the exception of Sonny Ramphal who is good at his own PR, our achievers are not known to us, particularly so with the younger generation. Okay, they know Clive Lloyd and perhaps Lance, but when you mention the “W formation” many of them ask you “what is that?” and Hasely Crawford draws a blank, never mind Arthur Wint.
There is a tangled sociological story involved here, which no one has yet attempted to unravel, and may never do. But with the condition as it is, however it developed, one factor in
