Web of October: rereading Martin Carter

Guyana, that extraordinary country teeming with poets and storytellers, has produced two more outstanding poets in Sasenarine Persaud and Rupert Roopnaraine.

Another formidable Guyanese voice that has always stayed fast to Guyana is that of Martin Carter, widely regarded as his country’s ‘national poet’. Web of October, subtitled Re-reading Martin Carter, is a tribute to the poet, by leading member of the Working People’s Alliance and university teacher, Rupert Roopnaraine.

Weaving in and out of the insights and interstices of Carter’s brief but epochal poem of 1953, ‘You are Involved’, Roopnaraine composes his own memorable poems, all reflecting upon the moments of October - the October (1983) of the death of Maurice Bishop, the October (1986) of the death of Samora Machel, and the October of Guyana’s own ‘generation of 1953’, of which Carter, Jagan and Eusi Kwayana (to whom Roopnaraine’s poems are dedicated) formed an integral part. Roopnaraine’s artistry strives for a merging with Carter’s depth and ambivalence, and the resulting unity between two struggling generations of Guyana, forged through poetry, is both moving and inspiring.