Ken Ram­c­hand

Dr Ian Mc­Don­ald, au­thor of the nov­el The Hum­ming�Bird Tree, is to be in­duct­ed as a Dis­tin­guished Friend of Mr Biswas at a cer­e­mo­ny to be held at the Na­tion­al Li­brary on No­vem­ber 28.

Dis­tin­guished Friends of Mr Biswas are elect­ed from among West In­di­an artists, par­tic­u­lar­ly writ­ers, and from in­ter­na­tion­al schol­ars work­ing on West In­di­an writ­ing or any re­lat­ed as­pect of Caribbean cul­ture.

Mc­Don­ald (born in 1933) grew up in St Au­gus­tine and re­ceived a sound ed­u­ca­tion at Queen's Roy­al Col­lege be­fore tak­ing an ho­n­ours de­gree in his­to­ry at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty. In 1955 he be­gan a long ca­reer in the sug­ar in­dus­try in Guyana, hold­ing key po­si­tions with Book­ers, lat­er Guy­Su­Co, till 1999, af­ter which he served as CEO of the Sug­ar As­so­ci­a­tion of the Caribbean.

Ear­ly po­ems like Jaf­fo the Ca­lyp­son­ian, 'e Four Knives of Free­man the Cane-Cut­ter, and The Seine�Pullers are steeped in the pop­u­lar cul­ture of Trinidad, as is The Hum­ming-Bird Tree. This nov­el of child­hood is at once a lov­ing cel­e­bra­tion of the land­scape of his na­tive is­land, an evo­ca­tion of life and so­ci­ety in Trinidad from the 1930s to the 1950s, and a sad con­fes­sion­al de­pic­tion of how so­cial and eth­nic bias are im­pli­cat­ed in the loss of in­no­cence and har­mo­ny.

He be­came an im­por­tant part of the Guyanese lit­er­ary scene as po­et, short-sto­ry writer, news­pa­per colum­nist, ed­i­tor of Kyk-over-Al, and as chair­man of Guyana Pub­lish­ers Inc, pub­lish­ers of the Stabroek News. He co-edit­ed the Col­lect­ed Po­ems of AJ Sey­mour, the Heine­mann Book of Caribbean Po­et­ry in Eng­lish, The Bowl­ing Was Su­perfine (WI crick­et writ­ing), and They Came in Ships (an an­thol­o­gy of Guyanese East In­di­an writ­ing).

He is al­so a per­former. Mc­Don­ald played ten­nis for Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty and cap­tained both Guyana and West In­dies in the Davis Cup. He is a pas­sion­ate crick­et fan and com­men­ta­tor, and was cho­sen to de­liv­er the in­au­gur­al lec­ture in the Sir Frank Wor­rell Lec­ture Se­ries at Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty. His cho­sen top­ic was, Crick­et: A Hunger in the West In­di­an Soul.

His syn­tac­ti­cal­ly un­com­pli­cat­ed po­et­ry is en­riched by pock­ets of fine de­scrip­tion, hu­mour and mov­ing lyi­cism, and it abounds with en­nobling and com­pas­sion­ate por­traits of the peo­ple of Trinidad, Guyana, and the whole re­gion.

The por­traits in­clude Mas­sa Day Done, in which the Mas­ter Blaster struts on­to the page: "You see how he com­ing in, how he shoul­der re­lax, how he spin the bat, how he look up at the sun, how he seem to breathe deep , how he swing the bat, how he look around like a lord, how he chest ex­pan'. You ever see the man wear hel­met, tell me the bowler should wear hel­met, not he."

The po­em ends with a read­ing of the his­tor­i­cal and po­lit­i­cal forces dri­ving our Viv "as if he alone could end we slav­ery."

Mc­Don­ald's lat­er po­ems are a lit­tle more serene than the ear­li­er ones as they con­tem­plate age­ing, death and the ul­ti­mate val­ue/mean­ing of be­ing here. The mood may be som­bre in these lat­er po­ems but this is one pos­i­tive man. Near­ly every­thing he writes, ear­ly or late, cel­e­brates life, en­er­gy, love, and the plea­sures of liv­ing.

Guyana claims him and has ho­n­oured him, and T&T owns him too. But he is a Caribbean man boast­ing strong fam­i­ly con­nec­tions with An­tigua, Montser­rat and Ja­maica.

Just as in­ti­mate to him is his kin­ship with the great writ­ers of our re­gion and the world. His great-grand­fa­ther trans­lat­ed Ovid and wrote po­ems in­clud­ing Childe Harold in the Shades, his great-un­cle pub­lished Songs of an Is­lander, and his grand­moth­er launched Sun­flakes and Star­dust, and cor­re­spond­ed with two great West In­di­an ed­i­tors and po­ets, AJ Sey­mour (Kyk-over-Al) and Frank Col­ly­more (Bim).

Po­et­ry is in Ian Mc­Don­ald's genes. He has been writ­ing po­ems for more than 50 years. His first pub­lished one (leav­ing out his child­hood scrib­blings) is Jaf­fo the Ca­lyp­son­ian (1955), which had a long run in the CXC syl­labus.

Mc­Don­ald's ex­pe­ri­ence, ver­sa­til­i­ty, wis­dom, and wide-em­brac­ing love of po­ems are in rich ev­i­dence in his re­cent­ly pub­lished A Love of Po­et­ry, ar­ti­cles se­lect­ed from his writ­ings over the last 25 years, main­ly from Ian on Sun­day' his col­umn in the Stabroek News.