E h carter biography of martin

1927-1997

Poet

One of the most important poets to come out of the Caribbean, Martin Carter has been compared to literary lions such as W.B.

Yeats and Pablo Neruda. His most famous work was fueled by the political turmoil that gripped his native Guyana in the 1950s and 1960s.

E h carter biography of martin

He told fellow Guyanese writer Bill Carr in an interview for the Guyanese magazine Release that politics and poetry were inseparable. "[If] politics is a part of life, we shall become involved in politics, if death is a part of life we shall become involved with death, like the butterfly who is not afraid to be ephemeral." Unfortunately, because of the fame of his politically-charged poems Carter was often pigeon-holed as a revolutionary poet.

But as Guyana's Stabroek News wrote, "there were other voices in Martin Carter, strains of tenderness, love poems of moving fervour, agonies expressed that have nothing to do with politics, insights into all of human nature."

During his