Martin Carter

Martin Wylde Carter (June 7, 1927-December 13, 1997) was a Guyanese poet, who has been compared in stature to W. B. Yeats^[1] and Pablo Neruda, ^[2] as well as being called "the most Caribbean of Caribbean poets".^[3] Of mixed European, East Indian, and African descent, he began publishing in 1950 in Thunder (the organ of the People's Progressive Party (PPP) and in A.J. Seymour's literary journal Kyk-over-Al.

His collection Poems of Resistance, published in 1954, established his reputation as a powerful moral and political voice.

In the late 1950s he broke with the PPP and became active in the People's National Congress (PNC) of Forbes Burnham, serving in PNC governments as minister of information from 1964 to 1970. In the late 1970s he was a supporter of the Working People's Alliance of Eusi Kwayana and Walter Rodney.

Long seen as primarily a poet who touched on themes of politics, resistance, and protest, his later poems were often highly personal. He is best known, however, for a powerful protest poem of the 1960s, "I come from the nigger yard of yesterday".

At the Live from Lincoln Center jazz concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Danny Glover quoted some lines of Carter's, bringing him to public attention in North America for the first time in the twenty-first century.

Select bibliography

• The Hill of Fire Glows Red, Miniature Poets, 1951.
• The Kind Eagle, privately printed, 1952.
• The Hidden Man, privately printed, 1952.
• Poems of Resistance from British Guiana, Lawrence and Wishart, 1954.
• Poems of Shape and Motion, privately printed, 1955.
• Jail Me Quickly, privately printed, 1963.
• Poems of Succession, New Beacon, 1977.
• Poems of Affinity, Release, 1980.
• Selected Poems, Demerara, 1989.

Notes

1. ^ "The Mob at the Door: A 'Biography' of Martin Carter" http://www.guyanaundersiege.com/Literature/review%20of%20Biography%20of%20Martin%20Carter.htm
2. ^ http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2449/Carter-Martin.html
3. ^ "Fan the Flame" by Tim Hector, http://www.candw.ag/~jardinea/ffhtm/ff971219.htm

Grexton Knowles

External links

• Review of Poems of Succession
• A 'Biography' of Martin Carter
• Biography of Carter from Peepal Tree Press
• Review of University of Hunger by Vahni Capildeo, from The Caribbean Review of Books
• Essay on Carter by Stewart Brown, from The Caribbean Review of Books

Persondata
Name	Carter, Martin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1927
Place of birth
Date of death	1997
Place of death