Guyanese Writers of African Descent (Part XI)
IN KEEPING with UNESCO’s proclamation designating 2011 as ‘International Year of People of African Descent’, we now embark on a series of articles highlighting Guyanese Writers of African Descent who have made significant contribution to our literature.
There are many pitfalls and shortcomings associated with listing, grouping and categorising; straightway, I apologise for omissions or any other deficiencies.  Of course, I may stumble here, and, of course, I would depend on your support in supplying necessary information so we are all the wiser in the end.
So far, we have looked at Ivan Van Sertima, N. E. Cameron, Eric Walrond, ER Braithwaite, Jan Carew, O. R. Dathorne, Beryl Gilroy, Denis Williams, Henry Josiah, and Walter MacArthur Lawrence.
We now take a look at Egbert ‘Leo’ Martin, a differently-able young man with enormous literary talent; a gifted writer who was born in 1861, some 150 years ago.
As the world prepares to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of another poet, Rabindranath Tagore, we in Guyana ought to spare a thought for ‘Leo’, for he was labelled “one of the greatest Negro poets in history; the ablest of the poetical writers of whom British Guiana can boast,” and “one whose works plainly bespeak talent and ability of the highest order.”

Egbert Martin

Egbert Martin was a remarkable writer on many fronts. His was a short life of less than thirty years, most of it lived from a sick-bed, but he managed to write and publish a significant amount of poetry, songs and some short stories.
His first poems were published when he was only nineteen. His first collection of poems, ‘Leo’s Poetical Works’, was published in 1883, when he was only twenty-two.
His second collection of poems, ‘Leo’s Local Lyrics’, was published in 1886, laying claim to the honour as the first collection of poems to be published locally by a Guyanese writer. This second collection of poems was a response to criticism that his first volume was devoid of local colour, thus staking claim to the honour as the first Guyanese writer to explore subjects carefully avoided by other writers, and this also gave him the honour as a forerunner to many of the great names to follow who were careful of including local colour into their works. Therefore, Egbert Martin was the first native West Indian poet of substance.
With his second collection, Martin showed that he was aware of the role of the artist in society. His first published collection of poems was criticized on the ground of being universal, containing too much ‘goody-goodiness’, and the poet acknowledged that “the opinions were not without foundation.”
In response, he produced his second volume, ‘Leo’s Local Lyrics’, which was published in 1886. He said that he hoped this collection was “more in accordance …with public taste,” producing such locally flavoured pieces like ‘The Sorrel-Tree’, ‘The Creek’, ‘The Locust Tree’ and ‘The Swallow’.
In the poem, ‘Patria Mea Te Amo’, he went to great lengths in responding to patriotic impulses: ‘Demerara! Dearest country/Thou art dearest to me/Tales of hills and streams of beauty/Cannot steal my love from thee/…Conscious of thy native charms.’
The criticism of his first book of poems worked in his favour; it spoke of a fan-club, an audience anticipating further offerings. The criticism also spoke of an output affecting a wide range of people. And there is evidence of his influence on the society, especially from the local press.
The Daily Chronicle, published in Demerara, described Martin as “the ablest of the poetical writers of whom British Guiana can boast,” while the Berbice Gazette reported Martin to be “one whose works plainly bespeak talent and ability of the highest order.”
Further afield, Martin’s poetry was admired by Lord Tennyson. Additionally, he had at least two patrons, men of great influence in the colony: James Thompson, editor of The Argosy newspaper, and George Anderson Forshaw, Mayor of Georgetown.
Another source of support could be found in the preface to ‘Leo’s Local Lyrics’, where Martin mentioned “a poet friend of mine whose opinion I value very highly.”
Apart from knowing the role of the writer in society, Martin gave an insight into his reason for writing and publishing. He declared that it was “Simply and purely a radiant hope, an earnest desire, that the words of his mouth, and the meditations of his heart, may reach the outwards ears and sink deeply into the hearts of some of his fellow-pilgrims…carrying comfort to the sorrowful and oppressed; hope to the languid and desponding; strength to the weak and weary; light to those who sit in darkness; cheerful encouragement to the “weary in well-doing.”
Martin was a “talented Victorian poet and master of Victorian metrical forms” whose work was steeped in spirituality, focusing on death and the future.

‘It is good, on gaining every station
In life’s progressive day
To pause a little while in contemplation,…
And view each stumbling stone;
To gather fresh experience for resistance…
‘Tis looking back that gives the future colour,
Because, in life, we find
The past analogizes all the future
Upon the plastic mind’

Another first for Martin was that he was the first Guyanese to publish a collection of short stories. That collection, Scriptology, was published in 1885. Unfortunately, that collection cannot be located. 
A great honour was bestowed on Martin when, in 2007, Selected Poems of Egbert Martin was published, bringing into focus once again the work of a forgotten poet. This publication was due in a large way to the effort of David Dabydeen, a prizewinning poet, novelist, academic and enabler of the arts.
It was double honour for Egbert Martin in 2007, when the custodian of The Guyana Annual magazine (formerly the Chronicle Christmas Annual, first published in 1915) initiated The Egbert Martin Poetry Prize for younger aspiring poets.
Egbert ‘Leo’ Martin died on June 23, 1890, but his name is perpetuate through the hosting of The Egbert Martin Poetry Prize by The Guyana Annual, which is currently edited by yours truly.

WHAT’S HAPPENING:
·    A UNESCO-sponsored one-week creative writing workshop is set for August 2011; limited places available on a ‘first-come-first-serve’ basis. Facilitators will include local and international teachers/writers. Please contact me for more information.
·    Look out for a new addition to the Guyanese bookshelf: ‘Copying, Copyright and the Internet: The issue of internet Regulation with regard to Copying and Copyright’ by Abiola Inniss.
·    And you are invited to a book exhibition and a lecture on copyright to mark World Book and Copyright Day at the National Library, Church and Main Streets, on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, at 1700 hours (5pm)

(To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)