Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 30, 2015 Letters
Dear Editor,
I refer to the article in Kaieteur News of January 26, ‘Al Creighton defends deadline for Guyana Prize entries’.
The Guyana Prize has two objectives:
“* provide a focus for the recognition of the creative writing of Guyanese at home and abroad;
* stimulate interest in and provide encouragement for the development of good creative writing”
My contention has been that the latter objective has been perennially neglected, a situation which has negatively impacted upon the first objective. If poor or no development mechanisms are in place, the sort of mechanisms that exist outside of Guyana, then it is inevitable that the Prize is going to recognize (and reward) more writing from Guyanese abroad than Guyanese at home.
While Mr. Creighton decries a lack of media involvement in publicizing the Prize, the fault is the Prize Committee’s. For example, on the University of Guyana website, the section on the Prize relates to the 2012 award. Between September 2013 and now, there has been no awareness programme on the Guyana Prize, nor any involvement of resident winners in helping out with promotion, not even an invitation to speak to the students of the University of Guyana.
Mr. Creighton states that the $4.7 million figured I quoted as allocated for Guyana Prize writing workshops was wrong. The following is from a letter from Khemraj Ramjattan (SN, April 27, 2013) detailing Minister of Culture, Dr. Frank Anthony’s response to questions on the Sports and Arts Fund expenditure:
“On the issues surrounding the Guyana Prize for Literature, the Minister stated that the Guyana Prize for Literature requested $24.6M, inclusive of Guyana Prize Awards – $12,545,790; Guyana Prize Caribbean Award – $7,413,380 and Developmental Workshops training for Local Writers – $4,710,000.”
If I am wrong, then that would mean that Dr. Anthony was less than factual under oath in Parliament on expenditure that was approved to his Ministry. How much was actually spent and where is the balance? Mr. Creighton says that money had to be spent on bringing in overseas-based writers to conduct workshops but doesn’t want to “get into a fight about costs” and turn it into a “political issue.” It is an issue of public accountability because it involves public funds.
Mr. Creighton might not have considered that in the same breath in which he paints local writers as apparently incapable of producing quality work, he is justifying the expenditure of undisclosed amounts of funds to fly people in, accommodate them, and pay them to undertake what by his logic is an exercise in futility. If local writers are that hopeless, why fly in people to do one-off workshops lasting a maximum of a few hours each?
Mr. Creighton is right when he said that you don’t make a writer in two months. What should have been done, as I have recommended for years, is writing workshops long before the deadline is announced, or an ongoing mechanism for development of our emerging writers, something that this government has deliberately neglected to undertake.
Mr. Creighton strangely speaks of my own refusal to collect payment for the workshops I’ve conducted as some sort of flaw or disingenuous tactic. My reasoning is simple – while I am by no stretch of the imagination a rich man, I would prefer that any money I forfeit for such services be put into other workshops. It makes no sense to me to cry about the lack of development for emerging writers and then seek to profit from whatever attempts there are, however inadequate, to rectify that situation.
This is a position that I have been consistent in, including my agreeing in 2011nto submit poems as part of a Caribbean Press anthology under the condition that the Ministry of Culture raise the price per poem from the initial offer of $2,000 to at least $6,000, with any payment owed to me being equally distributed among other persons appearing in the anthology. When the Caribbean Press, three years later, finally published a poorly edited anthology, contributors were paid $6,000 per piece.
Mr. Creighton sees some sort of political motive behind my suggesting that the government of Guyana, which is ultimately responsible for the Prize, establish a fair and transparent system for the development, production, recognition and reward of good writing coming out of Guyana. That is a charge I readily plead guilty to. Without writers and artists operating in a free, fair and sustainable environment, a society is bound to the sort of political quagmire in which we find ourselves.
I don’t believe what I am suggesting is unfair. The Prize has been put back before, and a great deal longer than two months. I’m currently working with a small number of writers, two of whom in particular I believe are producing brilliant work; we are using mutual spare time as well as online resources for them to present and critique their writing. I’ve already asked a newly established fellow Caribbean poet to be involved in the latter mechanism and I will be including other willing writers to serve as virtual mentors both leading up to the Prize deadline and beyond. I’m simply recommending that the government of Guyana push back the Guyana Prize to accommodate the production of work by local writers, and to facilitate workshops in which they can produce better and more competitive work. If my refusal to accept payment in conducting some of these sessions is seen as political, I’ll gladly accept a cheque for services rendered.
Ruel Johnson
Janus Cultural Policy Initiative
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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