MARTIN WYLDE CARTER (1927-1997) is regarded by his literary peers as the finest of all Guyanese poets. He was born in Georgetown, Guyana (then British Guiana), to middle-class parents of mixed African, Amerindian, and Portuguese ancestry. His father was a civil servant and avid reader, and his mother imbibed in him a love of poetry.
In 1945, after graduating from the colony’s prestigious Queens College, Carter worked in the civil service—first in the Post Office, then as secretary to the superintendent of prisons. In 1953, at 26 years old, he married his childhood girlfriend, five years younger. Soon afterward, he began working as a schoolteacher (1954-1959). Then in 1959, he joined the multinational Booker group of companies, owner of the colony’s sugar estates, as Information Officer later editing Bookers News between 1965 and 1966.
As a member of the anti-colonialist political party, founded in 1950, Carter’s early poetry reflects his concern for the country’s freedom from colonial oppression and call for self-governance.
Gains towards self-governance were short-lived. In 1953, British troops landed and the British governor suspended the constitution. Together with other political leaders of the party, the poet-politician was arrested and interred at the British-American airbase for three months.
In 1954, after his release, Carter published his renowned collection, "Poems of Resistance from British Guiana." His poems reflect the anxiety of the times: oppression, fear, and bloodshed.
Following Guyana’s independence in 1966, Carter left Bookers to become the country’s first representative to the United Nations and to hold the post of Minister of Information (1967-1971). Disillusioned by Guyana’s new government, he resigned his position.
After spending a year as Poet in Residence at Essex University (1975-1976), he returned to Guyana to hold the position of Writer in Residence at the University of Guyana (1977-1981). In 1978, he re-entered the political struggle as a sympathizer of the cause of the Working Peoples Alliance (WPA), under the leadership of Walter Rodney. That year, he received a beating from thugs of the autocratic regime, while protesting plans not to hold elections. The following year, he witnessed the regime’s thugs murder Father Bernard Darke SJ, photographer for the Catholic newspaper, in broad daylight, during a demonstration outside the Central Police Station.
The civil rebellion against the autocratic regime culminated in the assassination of Walter Rodney on June 13, 1980, with a bomb hidden in a walkie-talkie. Carter’s response to the events during that period is his densely, multi-layered poems in "Poems of Affinity 1978-80," published in 1980. In this collection, he dissects the dark heart of humanity during bleak times, and our place in time.
Carter’s poetry collections include the following: The Hill of Fire Glows Red (1951), The Kind Eagle: Poems of Prison (1952), The Hidden Man: Other Poems of Prison (1952), Poems of Resistance from British Guiana (1954), Three Poems of Shape and Motion (1955), Jail Me Quickly: Five Poems (1966), Poems of Succession (1977), Poems of Affinity 1978-80 (1980), and Selected Poems (1989 & 1997).
During his lifetime, Carter received the following awards: Guyana Prize for Literature (1989), Order of Roraima for outstanding contribution to literature (1994), and Gabriela Mistral Inter-American Prize for Culture for contribution to literature (1996).
NOTE: File corrupted. Unable to use italics for book titles.
