By Frederick Halley
GUYANA-BORN Canadian poet, writer and community leader Janet Naidu recently launched her fourth poetry collection, River Crossing, in Toronto, Canada. The event was held at the Island Junction Restaurant in Toronto, and began in the early afternoon of Sunday, April 14.

Under the leadership of Adit Kumar of the Vedic Cultural Centre as Emcee, who guided the programme, the attendees attentively enjoyed the diversity of the poems that were read at the launch.
Naidu commenced the readings with some of her poems, “One Day in Our Journey”, “Annapurani, Pati”, and “Still Holding On,” followed by readings from her collection by Ray Williams, short-story writer and emerging poet as well as Peter Jailall, poet and educator, all of whom are members of the Pakaraima Writers Association in Toronto, a group that Naidu founded in 2005 to bring writers together as a support group.

According to Naidu, she was pleased that both Williams and Jailall could participate in the readings of her poems at the launch. Ray Williams read two poems, “The Fence” and “The Weight on my Chest” and Jailall read two poems, “Refugee” and “Queen Bee”. One poem, “Locked Away”, was read by Peter Deboran, educator and community activist.

Naidu wrapped up the readings with one final poem, “You Speak Good English”. Attendees mingled with one another, enjoying an afternoon of literature in the Guyanese-Canadian community while obtaining a copy of the book at the author’s book-signing table.

About Janet
Born in Covent Garden, East Bank Demerara, Naidu immigrated to Canada in 1975. Her first collection of poems, Winged Heart (Greenheart, 1999), was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize for Literature in the poetry category in 2000. Her other two poetry collections include Rainwater (2005 & 2023) and Sacred Silence (2009). Her poems capture themes of ancestral heritage, migration, uprooted movements, resettlement, resilience and survival. She disclosed that she has been working progressively on this new collection for over a decade.

Naidu pointed out that she was encouraged to write poems by the late Rajkumari Singh, who had a passion for literary creations and was an accomplished writer, dramatist, poet, and public literary and social figure in Guyana. She boasted that “Singh created a space in her home on Lamaha Street in the 1970s for young and emerging writers, poets, dramatists, dance performers, artists – Rooplall Monar, Mahadai Das, Henry Mootoo, Gushka, Elfreida Bissember, Gora Singh, among others.”

According to Naidu, who is also the current President of the Guyanese Canadian for Unity (GCU), during that period she was developing her writing and was avidly writing to “pen pals” around the world about life in Guyana.

Naidu developed her creative writing and felt privileged to have been part of Rajkumari’s environment, where her deeper imagination began to take root through the late writer who encouraged her to write a couple of poems for the Heritage booklet, published in 1973.

According to Naidu, even though she was busy establishing herself in her new home when she migrated to Toronto, she still harboured nostalgia about Guyana, especially the village people and the sugarcane fields near Covent Garden and surrounding areas where she grew up. “Writing poems was a way in which I found solace. I continued to write and managed to publish earlier collections of poems.”

Janet got involved in the Guyanese community, and apart from her leadership roles in community organisations, she continues to be involved in the writing group, where she finds the support of other writers and poets to be a great source of nourishment.

River Crossing contains 54 poems, capturing themes of cultural connection with her beloved Guyana and reflections of life in Canada. The collection has voices of diverse experiences of struggles, the quest for equality and overcoming barriers. She also delves into ancestral heritage and synthesises history, culture and memories.

Attendees at the launch obtained copies of the book, which is also available on Amazon.

Janet’s poetry and writings have appeared in news media, online publications, and anthologies, referenced in books on Indo-Caribbean themes and in the Women’s Journal of the University of the West Indies.

Naidu has a BA in Political Science and Caribbean Studies from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of London, UK. Having completed her legal education later in life, Janet is not a practising lawyer; she has utilised her legal education to teach legal courses in the subject area of hospitality and tourism at the George Brown College in Toronto.