‘Hurt unto death’

Dear Editor,

I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to Mr Ruel Johnson for his response to Dr David Dabydeen’s sad comments on our local writers. I want to convey to Mr Johnson that I could not have offered support because I’m dead as a poet/writer so-called, because of the way I have been treated, among other things. And the dead cannot speak.

After over 40 years of effort, I stand, among others, neglected and impoverished with respect to support and encouragement from any source.

In a fit of intense pain, I destroyed all my pieces a few years ago when an Anthology of Guyanese Poetry edited by Ian McDonald et al, positioned my name in the index of the publication without a single line of mine within. I was hurt unto death.

For years to come, I doubt whether the local writer, not yet established will be given any support from the ministry responsible for cultural development. The Dabydeens of the literary world will ever be empowered to insult the struggling. Now I hate the word poetry; I do not want to see a poem.

My thanks to those who contributed to my literary demise.

Mr Johnson, God bless you for speaking for those who are not getting anywhere because they are considered not worthy to be anywhere.

Yours faithfully,
Krishna Nand Prasad
Teacher of Additional
 Mathematics