Martin Carter

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Martin Wylde Carter (7 June 1927--December 1997), a Guyanese poet and political activist, was born on June 1927.

Carter, widely regarded as the best Guyanese poet and one of the Caribbean's most influential writers, is best known for his poems of opposition, resistance, and revolution.

He was instrumental in Guyanese politics, particularly in the years leading up to independence in 1966 and those immediately after.

He was widely jailed by the British government in Guyana (then British Guiana) in October 1953 under suspicion of "spreading envy" and in June 1954 for participating in a PPP parade.

He published Poems of Resistance from British Guiana (1954), shortly after being released from jail for the first time.

Life

Martin Carter was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), to Victor Emmanuel and Violet Eugene Carter (née Wylde) on June 7th, 1927. He was one of seven siblings. He attended Queen's College School in Georgetown from 1938 to 1947. Carter did not want to go to college and instead joined the public service, first for the Post Office, and then for the Prison Service. When a "fragment" of Carter's poem "An Ode to Midnight" was published in A. J. Seymour's literary journal Kyk-Over-Al in 1948, a first publication of his poetry was published. Carter, the founder of the socialist and anti-colonial People's Progressive Party (PPP), led by Cheddi Jagan, became one of the founding members of the socialist and anti-colonial People's Progressive Party (PPP). In the PPP journal Thunder, he published his second poem, "The Indian Woman," in the same year (under the pseudonym M. Black). Carter married Phyllis Howard in 1953, and Keith, their first child, was born later this year.

In the first universal suffrage elections in British Guiana, Carter left the civil service and ran for the PPP. He was not elected, but the PPP won a convincing victory. Following the British government's declaration of a State of Emergency in Guyana, he was arrested and released without charge at a US airbase in Timehri on suspicion of "spreading dissension." Eusi Kwayana and Cheddi Jagan were arrested and detained without charge at a US airbase in October 1953, as a result of the discovery of a "spreading dissension." Although detained, Carter participated in a one-month hunger strike, which began on November 23rd, being a movement against the government's abuses and keeping the detainees imprisoned indefinitely, without charge. He remained in jail until January 1954, when he was released under arrest not to leave Georgetown. He was not allowed to serve on him until 1957. Poems of Resistance from British Guiana was published in London by Marxist publishing house Lawrence and Wishart in May 1954, making Carter one of the first Caribbean writers to be published outside of the Caribbean. He was arrested in June 1954 for being involved in a PPP parade and was sentenced to six months in prison, until December of that year. Sonia, his second child, was born shortly after his release.

The People's National Congress (PNC) in 1955, after a breakdown in the PPP resulted in a split in the party and the founding of a rival party, Carter chose to remain with the PPP. This will not last long, but it will not take long: just a year later, in 1956, he was barred from the PPP for being a "ultra-leftist." He started with information officer in the British Council's Georgetown Office for a short period (1959-67) and then as an Information Officer for Booker (a multinational corporation and owner of Guyana's sugar estates). Following Guyana's Independence in May 1966, he resigned from Booker and joined PNC as Minister of Information and Culture in 1967. He represented Guyana at the United Nations General Assembly from 1966 to 1967. Concerned over the PNC's growth, he resigned from this position, as well as political politics, in November 1970, saying he preferred to live "simply as a poet, not as a politician." He returned to Booker for the second time in 1978 to become a creative writing and artist in residence at the University of Guyana, from 1970 to 1978. He wrote Poems of Succession, which was published in 1977 by New Beacon Books. In 1978, he was badly wounded when he took part in a protest against the PNC and their refusal to hold elections. During this period, his sympathies lay with the Working People's Alliance of Eusi Kwayana and Walter Rodney, although he never became a party member.

Wilson Harris, Fred D'Aguiar, and Grace Nichols all participated in a Guyanese Writers Tour in the United Kingdom in 1992. Carter had a stroke in 1993 and lost his ability to walk and talk. He died on December 13, 1997, and his wife and their four children survived. He was buried at the Place of Heroes in Georgetown's Botanical Gardens, an award that had previously only been reserved for Heads of State.

Source

Awards

• 1989: Guyana Prize for Literature
• 1994: Order of Roraima for outstanding contribution to literature
• 1996: Gabriela Mistral Inter-American Prize for Culture for contribution to literature