Martin Wylde Carter (7 June 1927 – 13 December 1997) was a Guyanese poet and political activist. Widely regarded as the greatest Guyanese poet, and one of the most important poets of the Caribbean region, Carter is best known for his poems of protest, resistance and revolution.[1][2][3][4] Carter played an active role in Guyanese politics, particularly in the years leading up Independence in 1966 and those following immediately after. He was famously imprisoned by the British government in Guyana (then British Guiana) in October 1953 under allegations of "spreading dissension", and again in June 1954 for taking part in a PPP procession.[5][6] Shortly after being released from prison the first time, Carter published his most well-known poetry collection, Poems of Resistance from British Guiana (1954).
From the Foreword by Sydney King:
You are about to read poetry which is significant for oppressed people, and particularly for Guiana and the whole Caribbean. Added significance resides in this poetry because Martin Carter approaches the world from the profound humanist standpoint of a Communist. The increasing grandeur of his work shatters the philistine belief that art is a pose divorced from real life, that bringing reality into art is the death of art.
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