(An extract of a television interview with Lawrence De Weever, Georgetown, Guyana, 2002, one of the first interviews to be recorded and aired on my television show, ‘Oral Tradition’.
World Storytelling Day 2012 was celebrated in Guyana on March 20. The theme for 2012 was ‘Trees’; last year’s theme was ‘Water’.)
PP: Once again I am revisiting my pet peeve – the almost forgotten art of storytelling – revisiting this issue with someone who knows a great deal about storytelling. Lawrence, why do you place this much emphasis on storytelling?

LD: I’m honoured to talk about the oral tradition – my livelihood is using that method of transmission.
First of all, let me give some background information about myself. I consider myself to be a griot. A griot, in traditional African sense, is a historian, the medicine-man, the keeper of the culture, the actor and the entertainer. Growing up here in Guyana, I was fortunate to have a very close-knit family, and as a child, I used to go around to all the relatives and ask questions like: What it was like when they were growing up; what it was like when they were children. And a lot of the stories they told me sort of excited the mind.
I also spent an awful lot of time at the National Library; every Saturday, my father used to take us to the library, and we used to literally run up the stairs and get lost in books. I found that the stories in the books were very engaging, they captured my imagination.
I also discovered that in order to get others to read the story in the books, I had to tell them part of the stories. So, basically, I was a storyteller-in-training as a child.

PP: What was your opening line?

LD: Simple. Let me tell you about this story I’ve read… And I would share pieces…

PP: Continue with the story of your life.

LD: Then we migrated to the States in 1971. While there, again the power of the spoken word and the written word was very powerful in my life. I graduated in theatre and children literature and library information science. So I worked in many libraries, and in order to get patrons to become familiar with, and interested in, certain texts, I would use the same technique: Let me tell you about this book I’ve read…

PP: So, you were sharing parts of stories and parts of books with people to get them hooked.

LD: And I was also looking for other ways to improve. I took a course in storytelling under Augusta Baker…

PP: THE Augusta Baker!!!

LD: Yes. And that’s how I found out the true power of storytelling. In this modern society, we are inundated with many forms of information. This is the information and technology age. The primary means of transmitting information is the television; television is a powerful tool.

PP: That’s why I use television to get over my message of reading and writing.

LD: Good for you; God bless your soul. You are really trying, Petamber.

PP: Thank you.

LD: But it has its negatives and positives. One of the negatives is when you sit down to watch television, you are watching someone else’s imagination at work, and you become passive.
One of the good things about storytelling is that it ignites the imagination; it allows you to hear the spoken word…

PP: It is engaging…

LD: Yes. And you can create in your mind; create characters, settings, costumes…

PP: …And that’s the power of storytelling.

LD: There’s more to storytelling. Guyana used to be known as a place of high literacy; the highest in the hemisphere, but that has taken a nosedive. In order to get back that high rating, we need to get our readers engaged, and storytelling is one way of getting people engaged in literature.

PP: Thank you for that endorsement. Continue… How will this work?

LD: Well, once you tell them the story and feed them information about the written word, they would be excited and motivated enough, hopefully, to go and find reading material and thus improve their reading and writing skills.

PP: There are other aspects of storytelling like the delivery and instance responses, imparting comprehension skills and expressions skills to children, shaping character, dealing with issues of adolescence, boy/girl relationships…
Now Lawrence; now that you have defined some aspects of storytelling, demonstrate to us how these aspects operate by telling a story.

LD: The story I’d like to share with you is entitled, ‘The People can Fly’.  And one of the powers of storytelling, especially in the time of crises, is that people find it alleviates the stress, and it allows the listener as well as the teller a chance to escape the current conditions.
As stated before, the current slide in the literacy rate is a crisis; this story is a story of fantasy of flight. Growing up as a child, I always had visions or fantasies of flying. And while at South Carolina State University at Orangeburg, one of my instructors explained that my vision of flight meant I wanted success. And she demonstrated it this way…

What’s Happening
•     ‘Literature on Television’, comprising of ‘Oral Tradition’ and ‘Between the Lines’, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the rebroadcast of some signal features including copyright, cultural industries, literary criticism, reading for pleasure, writers workshops, editing, and preparing manuscripts for publication (and literary prizes). Both programmes are aired on NCN; ‘Oral Tradition’ is on Wednesdays at 2035 hours and ‘Between the Lines’ – first Sunday each month at 2100 hours.
•    Look out for details on World Poetry Day, and World Book & Copyright Day.
•    New books to be launched soon: ‘Pak Britannia’, articles and interviews with David Dabydeen, edited by Lynne Macedo; and ‘Talking Words’, new essays on the work of David Dabydeen, edited by Lynne Macedo.

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