(Part II of an extract of an interview with Donald Trotman, Georgetown, Guyana, June 29, 2011.  A lawyer and former judge, law teacher and lecturer who has collaborated with the UN (United nations), OAS (Organisation of American States), Amnesty International, and World Peace Through Law Centre, Trotman recently launched ‘Forest Leaves: An Autobiographical Collection of Poems, 1948 – 2011’. His other publications include ‘Poems for my People’, ‘Waiting for Justice’ and ‘Voices of Guyana’.)

PP: You mentioned Elma Seymour.
DT: Elma was a DeWeever; very scholarly family of musicians, writers, historians, educators.
PP: How many women were in that group?
DT: Just two: Elma and her niece, Jackie DeWeever.
PP: Both writers/anthologists; Elma went on to compile ‘Sun is a Shapely Fire’, and she was also responsible for the production of a selection of her niece’s short stories, ‘The Magic Flute and Other Stories’.
DT: Jackie went on to become an expert on Shakespeare.
PP: Jacqueline DeWeever went on to compile, with Ian McDonald, an anthology of Seymour’s poetry [Arthur]… a monumental work.
DT: Yes, a very good anthology.
PP: Who else was in the group, apart from Jacqueline DeWeever, Elma and Arthur Seymour, Carter, Harris, VanSertima…?
DT: No one else. This was a regular group, but from time to time, you would have others dropping in; like a good friend of mine, Taharally…not Malcolm, Ernest. Don’t know if you know him.
PP: Know of his writing; very strong verses; complex.
DT: Yes; he was very much like VanSertima: A mystic and so on… metaphysical. And he went on to become a monk somewhere in Europe.
PP: His writing showed he was perhaps heading in that direction.
DT: Jackie went on academically; VanSertima also went on academically. But Martin and Wilson never decided to go on to university; they decided to keep on writing and did very, very well.
PP: Indeed. Harris, with some twenty-three novels to his name; Carter’s awesome collections of poems: ‘Poems of Resistance’, ‘Poems of Succession’, ‘Poems of Affinity’.
That group of writers has made a major impact on the literature of Guyana; they have made an enormous contribution to the literature of this country. Some of those writers have also influenced other writers. For example, this book [‘Forest Leaves’] is dedicated to Arthur Seymour and Rajkumari Singh. Let’s talk for a while about Rajkumari Singh: How was she involved?
DT: Raj was not part of this circle, but was linked to the circle.  Raj had her own circle; meeting in Lamaha Street, in the ancestral home — J. B. Singh’s home.  J. B. Singh was her father. Raj was living there with her husband, Harry. Harry was the link. Harry was a surveyor, and so, as you know, was Harris.
PP: And there was another surveyor in the group: Sydney Singh.
DT: Yes, I would really like to trace him. And he, while in his own right, had his own philosophical and metaphysical leanings, he was influenced by Wilson and Martin. And there was another surveyor who was really a surveyor’s help: Ivan Forester, who was a close buddy of Martin. So there were these little links…
PP: Expanding and interacting.
DT: Arthur knew Rajkumari. So while Rajkumari had her own circle separate from Arthur’s, from our circle, there were these links. Rajkumari’s circle…
PP: was a bigger circle…
DT: A much bigger circle…iIncluding many women. And others like Wordsworth MacAndrew, Henry Josiah, Rooplall Monar, Guska, Churamani, Buttisingh…
PP: Mention a few females.
DT: Mahadai Das, Janet Naidu, Sheila King, Syble Douglas, Evadne D’Olivieira. The two groups were not competing, as it were; both were encouraging and mutually reinforcing the other.
PP: But there was criticism, literary criticism; critiquing of each other’s work?
DT: Yes. When we read our poems, they were discussed, critically, of course; constructively.
PP: No one walked out.
DT: No, no; especially not from Rajkumari’s group. So we moved on, getting bigger … Rajkumari’s group. Then we began to move out and about, reading our poetry, because Carifesta came up very, very providentially, I must say. In the run-up to Carifesta, the members of these groups moved together. We went all over the country — the Corentyne, Bartica, Essequibo Coast, the East Coast, West Bank…
PP: This was with the blessing of the government, the National History and Arts Council.
DT: The National History and Arts Council was the coordinating force, the administrative body at that time.
PP: Who were in charge of the Council?
DT: Arthur, Rajkumari, Sheik Sadeek, the Dolphin sisters — Celeste and Lynette, the Pilgrims — Billy and Frank. So music, art, poetry, literature, drama became a part of a conglomerate, as it were; a cultural conglomerate.
PP: That was the main enabling factor at that time. Other enabling factors were the journals like ‘Kaie’ and ‘Kyk-over-Al’; those were platforms for the writers to market their work.
DT: And express themselves, because a writer really… and you know this only too well Petamber, a writer is not really about marketing in a financial way but they feel appreciated and recognised, and they feel they have cultural worth and that, you know, is what keeps them going.  So we went around [during Carifesta] to various towns. Then we had people like Braithwaite coming in to the country — both Braithwaites: The Barbadian poet and, and…
PP: E. R. Braithwaite, of ‘To Sir With Love’ fame.
DT: Sam Selvon, and the guy who wrote ‘Georgetown Journal’…
PP: Andrew Salkey! Wow! You rubbed shoulders with a lot of remarkable writers!
DT: Jan Carew. Yes! We really had something good going for us in those days.
PP: This was a fillip to the local writers.
DT: Sure. And there was Dobru from Suriname…
PP: very powerful writer.
DT: And a real mighty performer… ‘I want to hate somebody today’…
PP: I use that poem very effectively in my fight against noise nuisance.
DT: I know. Then there was Nicolas Guillen. Oh! We had a potpourri, a cultural potpourri at that time! Life was really enjoyable; in a cultural and artistic way!
PP: Apart from the enjoyment, that group, ‘The Thursday Evening Poets’, has contributed enormously to the literature of Guyana — Carter, Harris, Seymour, not forgetting your own contribution. This [‘Forest Leaves’] is not your first book, and I hope this is not the last.
DT: Even old trees can bear new leaves.