Ian McDonald was a stalwart Guyanese-West Indian figure

By Cyril Dabydeen, Ottawa Poet Laureate Emeritus

I join with many others in expressing condolences to Mr Ian McDonald’s family on his passing in Toronto. Indeed he was a stalwart Guyanese-West Indian figure–born in Trinidad, and who went to school with the likes of V.S. Naipaul. 

Over the years I would read with interest his columns about poets he admired in the Stabroek News, if only to glean his literary forte. He and I corresponded briefly when years ago he was editor of the iconic Guyanese literary magazine, Kyk-over-al. And I last met him where we chatted briefly at the Bocas Literary Festival in Trinidad about a decade ago. He’d included me in his Heinemann anthology of Caribbean poetry. I naturally included him when I edited Beyond Sangre: Caribbean Writing Today (Mawenzie House, Toronto). 

To say the obvious: he was a many-talented professional and admired cultural figure known for his urbanity. His interest in sports, especially cricket, often caught my interest: his eloquent words about Rohan Kanhai, and then of iconic novelist Wilson Harris have stayed long with me. I wrote two “found poems”–a Kanhai poem Ian had urged me to publish, if only because of the inherent rhythm of Ian’s words; and similarly, a Harris poem, to reflect the writer’s inner life—poems I include here for readers to truly know:

ROHAN KANHAI

Mixed into everything else 

in his batting– 

there was one other absolutely rare 

element, a flare from 

the central fire–

which no one can wholly 

grasp, but which was there, 

in him and not others;  

and you felt it 

as he took the field and 

made his walk to the wicket, 

a quality that makes 

excitement grow in the air, 

a feeling that here– 

is something 

to see that makes 

the game of cricket 

more than a sporting contest;

makes it also an art, 

an encounter– 

with the truth and joy 

that lies in all supreme 

human achievement,

nothing less.

_________

WILSON HARRIS POEM

We sat near him– 

it was quite hard, and 

harder

to punctuate 

to emphasize–

what was tumbling 

out of his mind. 

“You see!” he would say. 

“You see! You see!” 

–some passages he read 

being incomprehensible.

But some I remember– 

being as beautiful  

and clear yet shadowy 

as forest rivers. 

At the time he may have 

been composing that truly 

visionary and wholly original work– 

Palace of the Peacock.

So I like to think– 

those passages he beat 

upon his knee being  

like the first 

announcement of his genius,

I’ve come to know.