Differently Coloured Stars

As I sit in the café and wait for the three writers to arrive, I notice that at various intervals along the ceiling are strung star-shaped lanterns in a variety of colours: red, blue, amber,

green, etc. The light from each lantern is muted, some might even say feeble, and yet these beautiful lanterns are a major part of what gives the environment its special charm.
Writers, and all artists, are like those star-shaped lanterns. They give whatever they can to make our world a more beautiful and well-lit place. They each exist in their own space, filling it with their individual light, but when they come together they are even more striking to behold.

The three writer/winners of the 2016 Walter Rodney Writing Awards troop in one after the other, on time and mere seconds behind each other, as if strung along by some invisible line that pulls them all together. I observe them walking under the star-shaped lanterns and I think that they too, the writers themselves, are stars, rising stars, not only as writers who have just begun their careers in writing but also as people who might, in some way, aim to achieve some sort of important cultural impact on the Guyanese social/cultural landscape.

The Walter Rodney Writing Awards, hosted by the Walter Rodney Foundation, may or may not have had this particular aim of the Competition in mind when it was first started, but there is no doubt that previous awardees (including a popular rock singer/songwriter, a columnist in one of the leading dailies, a young blogger and political activist, and a Guyana Prize winner) have tended to be people who went on to attempt to create some impact in society and on local culture. So, as I watch them enter, I become fully aware that these are the writers who will perhaps go on to do important things for Guyanese culture and society.

Introductions are made and it quickly becomes evident that they are as different from each other as a pink lantern is from a green lantern. While they are all the same – all writers, all lanterns – they are also different from each other: different colours, different ambitions, and different pursuits.

Gabrielle Mohamed, a recent University of Guyana graduate, having studied English, now works as a scribe for the visually-impaired students at the university. She won the Walter Rodney Award for her poem, “Hell that Springs from the Memory of the Dead.” Andrew Hutson is a medical doctor and is now a two-time winner of the Walter Rodney Award, winning most recently for his non-fiction piece entitled “Guyana’s Evolution: Ebb and Flow.” Nicholas Peters, winner of the Fiction category for his short story, “The Centuries Old Flame”, is a University of Guyana student, studying English. He works with the Amerindian People’s Association.

As I observe the three writers, all young, educated, mixed-race Guyanese, representing three major different literary styles with varying areas of interest, I think about the theme of the 2016 Walter Rodney Writing Competition – “Guyana in the Next 50 Years” – no doubt meant to commemorate our recently concluded Jubilee Anniversary and to also ask the future of Guyana to tell us the future they see themselves in. As the conversation begins and glasses begin to tinkle and low music and laughter begin to waft around all of us in the low evening light, I listen to these storytellers as they tell me the stories of their stories, of what they have written, and the stories of their lives, and how they use writing to illuminate the many dark corners of the Guyanese experience.

White, With a Streak of Red
Gabrielle Mohamed’s poem, “Hell that Springs from the Memory of the Dead”, is one of those that, through its mere existence, reminds readers and critics to never confuse the persona of a poem with the poet. The voice in Gabrielle’s poem, born from the poet’s bitter experiences of life in Guyana, is one that is loud, harsh, angry, rebellious, crude and unapologetic.

Yet, the poet herself could not be further removed from the voice that she expertly presents in the work. The persona rants against patriarchy, colonialism and the racial disharmony that is promoted against various sections of Guyanese society and even attacks the country itself, claiming that if our society continues to be what it is then it is unlikely that she, the persona, will even be alive in fifty years and that this death of the persona would be one that the entire country, in failing to address the issues that plague our young Guyanese women, will be responsible for.

The poem’s voice is a snarling beast of a woman, cursing, rippling with rage and wrath, and yet, when Gabrielle arrived on the night of the interview, it was impossible to associate her with the poem simply based on the way she looked. Gabrielle, wafting into the café, almost as if she had wandered into the place by chance; Gabrielle, in her pure white dress and glasses, her haired pulled back; Gabrielle, with her hands clasped together, her gentle demeanor and soft-spoken nature had managed to create a persona who appeared to be so different from who she appeared to be and it made you think, and it made you wonder.

Who else do we pass by in the streets of Georgetown and automatically assume what their stories are and what their stories will be? Perhaps, as with Gabrielle, if we were to look more closely and pay more attention, we would see the symbols, slight and barely there, that are the true indicators of who a person is. Perhaps, there was something in the slim piece of black lace that the poet wore tightly around her neck, or perhaps there was something hidden in the bright, red lipstick she wore on the night of the interview that stood, like a pretty stain, against her fair skin and pure white dress. Perhaps there was something else that I overlooked that stood, as wide as a symbol or as subtle as hint, as an indicator of that little streak of rebellion and wildness that exists within the poet and manifested itself within the poem.

The poem’s scathing attack on a society who forces people to conform to certain norms and identities was something that emerged from Gabrielle’s own life. As a mixed-race woman, she describes herself as being fractured and forced to swing between Indian, African and Amerindian identities because of the way our society’s structure is not as yet wholly able to facilitate the identities of mixed race peoples. The red burns a bit brighter when she speaks of the pain and struggles of Guyanese people who suffer because of racial differences.

Her voice becomes a bit louder, her tone becomes a bit sharper, and the words pour out of her. For a fleeting moment, you see the persona of the poem baring itself to everyone present, but then, quick as a glance, it is gone and only Gabrielle is before you once more, eyes wide and waiting for the next question.

During the conversation, she also pointed out that Guyanese appear to take pride in our multicultural identity, but it becomes a whole other scenario when multiculturalism, when the reality of it, presents itself to people in the form of, as an example, an interracial relationship. Creole, perhaps another expression of multiculturalism, is used a lot in the poem and it is obvious that Gabrielle feels that Creolese and our shared Guyanese history are two areas that help to define us as a people, and without them our identities would be quite truncated.

Gabrielle’s prediction of Guyana’s future is a bleak one. Her vision of the future is built on the darkness that clouds the minds of contemporary Guyanese people. This darkness is made up of patriarchy, the continued existence of colonial mindsets, and racial disunity. To curb this vision particular vision of our future, we must take action now. Such a future can be prevented and we must act quickly or soon all the lights will go out and Guyana will truly be covered in darkness, like a January midnight in a lamp-filled garden with all the lanterns blown out.

(To be continued next Sunday).