Mittelholzer: Obsession with being an Artist

An article in the Stabroek News by Al Creighton

http://www.stabroeknews.com/2008/guyana-review/06/26/literature-2/

Epithalamium (1945)

Trembled we have in the wind,

In the damp, in the fury of the night.

Reclined have they in the warmth,

In the perfumed security of the home.

The fear of the dark we have known

And the startling crack of a twig,

The roar, the whirl and the hiss of rain,

While on a couch

In the safety of a drawing-room

They have murmured and yawned

In ascetic content.

Trembled we have in the heat

Of unrestrained rapture,

In the cool, in the starry purple of night,

And kissed in the settling dew;

We of the Earth.

Chaste and controlled have they sat

In the warmth

Under the static lights of the home,

While we have roamed

In primeval gloom,

But in joy without bound;

We of the Earth:

Incorrect, incorrigible, immoral.

They of the drawing-room:

Correct, proper, and clean in thought,

Indeed!

Gentleman, a toast to the bride!

To the bridegroom!

To the drawing-room!

The Virgin (1954)

I sat one afternoon and watched

A virgin pass,

A virgin, poor lass,

Withering slowly on her Dead Sea shore,

Where the tide of years had lapped before,

And left her now to plod,

Alone, alas -

Poet Creating (written in March 1941)

Why must I create and create?

What Lernian Hydra[i] with unresting mania

Impels my pen, compels my mind

To feed and feed and sate

Its many mouths— its all-hungry yearning bellies?

To root, delve, to rummage and to find

This thought, that truth, this hue and tint

Until the very wrecked timbre of my being

Reels and quivers like a noisy mint,

Coining words and dreams and potent jellies?—

And no peace, no peace for me—

No cooling wind, no shade of tamarind tree

To give me respite from this surging thing;

No wizard-wand from out the burning day

To touch my spirit and wake me free.

---

[i] A Lernian [or Lernaean] Hydra, from Greek mythology, was a monstrous serpent with numerous heads that attacked with poisonous venom. As one of its head was immortal it was, ultimately, indestructible.

Republication of Edgar Mittelholzer's Novels

The following Mittelholzer novels have recently been republished by Peepal Tree Press:

Corentyne Thunder (2009 [1941]) : Introduction by Juanita Cox

The Life and Death of Sylvia (2010 [1953]): Introduction by Juanita Cox

A Morning at the Office (2010 [1950]): Introduction by Raymond Ramcharitar

Shadows Move Among Them (2010 [1951]): Introduction by Rupert Roopnaraine

http://www.peepaltreepress.com/home.asp

Jeremy Poynting, of Peepal Tree Press plans to republish some of his other novels in due course including the Kaywana Trilogy and My Bones and My Flute (1955)