Dr. Norton’s pronouncements on the Guyana Prize puzzled me

Jul 06, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
I was puzzled by Dr. Norton’s pronouncements on the Guyana Prize, because Dr. Norton himself seems puzzled. From what he says, it seems that he has very little understanding of the prize and how it functions, based on statements such as “it is not being run the way it should be” and “a lot of money was invested, and we would have to ensure that we get value for our money.”
I am not clear of the kind of “value,” he has in mind but in my opinion, the payoff in value is assured by intelligent people who write intelligently about Guyana. They promote Guyana through literature.
Fred D’Aguiar, Sasenarine Persaud, Wilson Harris, Harold Bascom, David Dabydeen, Ruel Johnson and others, for whom Guyanese culture and people are their salient subjects, bring value to Guyanese arts. These writers constitute a creative force unsurpassed in all the Caribbean. The intrinsic value of the Guyana prize is that it promotes the artistic worth of Guyana by rewarding its writers. The prize does not pay for writers to write or publishers to publish their works.
I won a Guyana Prize for first book of Poetry in 2004; the manuscript had been my submission for a Master’s Degree in creative writing at Queens College of the City University of New York. It was subsequently published by a small press in California; they have published my other three books out of charity; they make no money from what I write.
Books of poetry do not appear on bestseller lists. The Guyana prize was helpful, because I had no idea of a critical reception of my work. I wrote in the basement when my children were asleep. I submitted and won a Guyana Prize. What is more, the judges who read my book had many kind things to say about it that encouraged me.
Dr. Victor Ramraj, a fine man, gave me some good advice. I remember him sitting with local Guyanese writers on the Herdmanston House veranda discussing their submitted manuscripts and giving them advice on how to improve their writing skills. He kept saying “you have to read more.” He was doing the workshops one on one.
The Guyana Prize encouraged me to write. The advice of the judges was indispensable to me. That the prize can be improved is not ambiguous; there is no perfection in the process or the execution of the award. This can also be said of the Nobel Prize or The Man Booker. There is no need to politicize the equivalent of mending a bucket so it can be used further for fetching clean water.
I do not like these arguments that pit diaspora writers against those who stay at home. I write poems about Guyana. It is my subject of choice. I try to write the best poems I possibly can. I am not unlike any Guyanese writer living at home. I came to New York as a boy. I have lived here close to forty years. There is no real privilege of writing from a metropolis of some snow country. It certainly does not ensure that you get published.
As I said, I am the charity case of a small publisher. I have written more than will ever be published by them. I have no quarrel with Petamber Persaud or Ruel Johnson or Ras Aaron Blackman, or any other writer who stays at home. These are serious, intelligent men, dedicated to their craft and are passionate about Guyana, not unlike myself. We may have more in common than we do differences. I know for sure that none of us want to see the Guyana Prize go away forever, because we recognize its real value to Guyana.
As writers, we can articulate this to Dr. Norton.
Berkley Wendell Semple
Author

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