The larger lesson of the Guyana Prize For Literature

It is an honour to have received in the awards for 2012 a Guyana Prize for Literature for my latest book of poetry, The Comfort of All Things, published by the Moray House Trust. This Prize is shared with a young poet Cassia Alphonso who received her award for an as yet unpublished collection of poems, Black Cake Mix. These poems are a delight to read and the promise of this young poet’s work is one of the highlights of these Guyana Prize awards – as is the extraordinary talent of Mosa Mathifa Telford who won the Drama Prize for her play Sauda.

And Ruel Johnson, who won the Prize for Fiction for his collection fictions, has followed up most satisfyingly the Guyana Prize he won earlier in his career for a First Book of Fiction. On being interviewed after that earlier award for his book Ariadne I remember him saying memorably, “I intend to write. I can’t see