THE National Library in collaboration with Francis Quamina Farrier and the University of Guyana will be hosting a series of events to commemorate the life and work of the late Guyanese poet, Arthur James (AJ) Seymour.
A concert and exhibition at the Theater Guild on Sunday will kick things off. Tickets are available at the National Library and Theatre Guild at $1,000 and $2,000.

The exhibition highlighting the poet’s work will be set up in the foyer of the Theater Guild on the night of the concert and subsequently in the lobby of the main wing of the National Library the following day.
Later in the day a plaque will be mounted on the building located at 23 North Road where the poet formerly resided.
Finally A.J. Seymour will be inducted into the National Library Hall of Fame for the Literary Arts which would be located in the Emily Murray reading room. The event will also be marked by a lecture conducted by Jacqueline de Weever in the National Library’s conference room.
Seymour was a Guyanese poet, essayist, memoirist and founding editor of the literary journal Kyk-Over-Al.
Born in Georgetown, British Guiana, to James Tudor Seymour, a land surveyor, and his wife Philippine, née Dey, A.J. Seymour attended the Collegiate School and the Guyanese Academy before entering Queen’s College, British Guiana’s most prestigious boys’ school, on a Government Junior Scholarship in 1928. He married Elma Editha Bryce, a teacher, on 31 July 1937. They had three daughters and three sons. Seymour died on 25 December 1989, a few weeks shy of his 76th birthday.
Seymour’s major collections include Leaves from the Tree (1951), Selected Poems (1965), Patterns (1970), My Lovely Native Land (1971) and Selected Poems (1983). A tribute volume called AJS at 70 (1984), edited by Ian McDonald, contained a selection of 15 poems under the title “The Essential Seymour”, chosen by Seymour himself.
In 2000, Seymour’s Collected Poems, 1937-1989 was published, edited by Ian McDonald and Jacqueline de Weever.

(By Michelle Gonsalves)