Fledgling poetry and the significance to national literature
The Cane Cutter
Mid the hot sun,
The still winds
“Him”, with his pardners Among the long canes, Sunburnt, fire-burnt canes. They cut . . . they talk,
Their clothes dirty with Black dust on parched soil, Perspiration
Running down their muscles.
Look at him –
Cutting canes . . .
Job from centuries to centuries,
Plot from ancestors to descendants, Place from living to dying,
Planted by hands of the masters, Ruled by the minds of robbers, Killed by the wealth of the ignorant. He cuts, ignorant of his labour, He dreams, ignorant of his dreams, Living, he lives with words of hope.
Where is the price?
Cutting the canes,
Fetching it in bundles, Throwing it into punts,
Being pulled by mules, Ground and turn’d into sugar, Wealth of mighty trade.
Where is he?
Robb’d . . . . not knowing he is robb’d. Handed only a few cents
For wives, sons, daughters,
He is glad, uttering the words,
“God go bless them, praise them”. Not knowing his labour,
His position, his importance,
Living by words and hope
And dreams of determination.
His task was spun by his ancestors, Handed from father to son.
Is he contented?
Waking at morn
Cutting cane all day, Going home at sundown, Wearied, restless,
Is he content?
He cuts with his pardners
That which sustains their lives,
Their desires, their happiness Dreaming, hoping.
And when death comes
They accept bravely
Thinking they are ready
Not knowing who they are.
They are born, they must live
They must die,
And so goes he – the Cane-Cutter! M R Monar
This is another example of a significant poem that has a notable place in Guyanese literature. It is not a remarkable poem in terms of stature or accomplishment, and is properly a good sample of the early work of a poet in the dawn of his career, before his ascendance into maturity. Yet it is worthy of notice for its historical value to national literature.
“The Cane Cutter” by M R Monar was first published in the 1966 edition of the Chronicle Christmas Annual, a longstanding magazine that became a tradition in Guyanese letters. It is a periodical publication with a history dating back to 1915 and persevering through various periods and fortunes, including name changes. It survives today as the Guyana Annual and is edited by Petamber Persaud.
In December 1966, the Annual returned after an absence of four years. It was also serving as the issue to mark independence and the contents were therefore consistent with the literature of a newly independent nation. This poem may be very appropriately analysed in that context.
Rooplall Motilall Monar was at that time in the very early years of his development as a writer. He was a member of a group led and mentored by the legendary Rajkumarie Singh and became the leader of another company of writers known as the Annandale Writers Group. However, he was already producing work with significant characteristics in Guyanese independent literature. This poem was to be followed shortly after by the more accomplished and better known “Creole Gang” and Backdam People, a series of short stories collected and published a decade later, the first publication of Peepal Tree Press in 1985.
The special quality of this work was that it represented literature that was shaping new dimensions in Guyanese writing post independence. The poems “The Cane Cutter” and “Creole Gang” both focus on workers in the sugar industry in a way not explored by writers before Sheik Sadeek in the 1960s. It was a remarkable leap forward particularly in East Indian literature which, in spite of a first anthology of poetry in 1934, had hesitated to exhibit a character of originality and identity, with the exception of C E J Ramcharitar-Lalla.
Monar in 1966 had ventured out into direct treatment of the grassroots of plantation workers just as Sadeek had done with the inhabitants of the estates and the rice fields. Singh was to delve into indentureship and its cultural repercussions, but Monar’s poem is significant for its bold step in attempting postcolonial poetry treating cane cutters and their field, social and psychological environment.
“The Cane Cutter” betrays the limitations of a developing poet, but stands out as a poem representative of new advancements in Guyanese East Indian literature of the 1960s, and post-independence Guyanese literature with a focus on the grassroots. In this way, it is in the same category of poems such as Wordsworth McAndrew’s “Ol Higue”.