POETRY IS the art of expressing beautiful, imaginative or elevated thoughts through written or spoken composition, and is one of the most respected art forms.
A biography is a detailed account of someone’s life, and even though we often don’t think of it this way, this, too, is an art, the reason being that a biography is more than a list of impersonal facts, unlike a profile or CV, but a beautiful portrayal of the subject’s intimate experiences which shows their personality.
It is not often that these two art forms meet and bear fruit. ‘Forest Leaves: An Autobiographical Collection of Poems 1948 2011’, is an exception. The book was written by the distinguished Mr. Donald Trotman, who has, in his lifetime, held many posts in the legal profession and in the field of diplomacy.  It was launched a few Thursday evenings ago at  Castellani House, home of the National Art Gallery here in the city.
In the work, Trotman gives  expression to his thoughts, ideas, experiences, the people he has met, the places he visited and the situations he has encountered during his many years as a lawyer, judge, as a law teacher and lecturer, as a diplomat; during the course of his work with the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Organization of American States (OAS), Amnesty International, the Carter Centre, and the World Peace Through Law Centre;  and his work with human rights, and conflict resolution and reconciliation, which occupied his working career in Guyana, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America.
The work is divided into the sections: ‘School Days: 1947-1954’; ‘Civil Service and Thursday Evening Poets: 1954-1956’; ‘England: 1956- 1961’; ‘Back in Guyana: 1961-1972’; ‘Africa: 1965’; ‘1973-1980’; ‘For those who stayed’; and ‘After many years’.
Trotman — who grew up in East Coast village of Golden Grove and was one of very few ‘country-boys’ at Queens College, then an all-boys school — begins the book with the poem ‘The Rustic’, the story behind which is an interesting one.
As he observes in the introduction, travelling by train to Georgetown was as fascinating as attending QC, since growing up among sisters, with no brothers, did not quite prepare one for suddenly finding oneself in an all-boys school.
And being a ‘country-boy’ did not help matters either, so the taunting had to be met with some show of defiance, hence the penning of ‘The Rustic’, which he followed up with athletic performances on track and field for good measure.
The inspiration for ‘Civil Service and Thursday Evening Poets: 1954-1956’, came when, embarking on a career in the civil service, he came into contact with poet and essayist Arthur Seymour, who was then Chief Information Officer of the Government Information Services, which was located opposite his workplace.
Seymour invited him to join a group of local literature enthusiasts who met on Thursdays to read and discuss theirs and other works, and it was this association with this group that stimulated his  own appetite for the craft.
The poems in ‘England 1956 – 1961’ span the period while Trotman was in England studying law. He says that though England was not “a poet’s paradise,” and law and examinations were not inspiring, some great works were produced there. For example, lines for ‘A village wedding’ came on a fit of nostalgia for home, while ‘We’ll meet again’ was a farewell to friends gathered in Brasted Chart in Westerham, Kent.
Settling back in Guyana after five years in England was not an easy time for Trotman, and he addresses this in ‘Back in ‘Guyana: 1961 to 1972’. It was a time when most of his old schoolmates were not around; his parents had moved; and he was faced with the challenge of setting up a law practice.
He would, however, renew his association with Seymour and the Guyana Writer’s Group, which later formed an association with the writers organization PEN International, which was how PEN Guyana Centre came into being. Through the latter organization, Trotman toured Guyana with the other writers, sharing their work and discovering new literary talent.
During this particular period, apart from several advancements career-wise, Trotman got married and fathered three of his five children.
The Poems ‘Africa’, ‘Lagos Morning’ and ‘Be patient now my people’ in ‘Africa: 1965’ are an expression of Trotman’s fascination with the people of Nigeria while he was there on a diplomatic mission.
In ‘1973-1980’, Trotman notes that though he produced little poetry during that period, he spent a lot of time promoting it through indoor and open-air readings with literary friends. A section of his work has been dedicated to a people he has a special admiration for, this being those who stayed behind here in Guyana through the rough periods of our history, before and after independence, especially in the rural areas.
‘May 1963’ reflects a dark period in our national life, he says, while ‘Destiny’ gives promise of healing and hope at the time of Guyana’s independence in 1966. ‘MaGuyana”  is an expression of his disappointment  in his country after returning home qualified and ready to serve, but realized that forces were working against his best efforts and intentions. ‘Miss Netta’ was written for a statuesque lady who smoked a pipe, and lived in a little hut in Golden Grove. She intrigued the writer with old stories of Africa, and the slave life of our ancestors.
Explaining ‘After many years’, Trotman says that during the period from 1980-2005, he wrote many speeches, eulogies, research reports, teaching materials, legal briefs, opinion newspaper articles, conference papers and two books of prose, but hardly any poetry.
However, after 2005, some of the distractions that had been plaguing him abated, and he began writing again. After 2009, he was hit with a fresh burst of poetic energy, which powered him to write some of the poems in the large cluster of the book. He named the book ‘Forest Leaves’ after the first poem in the cluster.
Reading and explaining excerpts from his work, Trotman expressed gratitude to those who attended the launch, good-naturedly saying: “You know who you friends are on two occasions: At a book launch and at your funeral.”
At the launch, son, Raphael, gave a brief but touching tribute to his father, praising his work and noting that even he had learned more about his father. The work was further lauded by Curator of the National Art Gallery, Ms. Elfrieda Bissember, who called it “a gem,” and Editor of the Arts Journal, Ms. Ameena Gafoor, who not only encouraged persons to buy a copy, but noted that one should be in every home.