Preserving our literary heritage by Petamber Persaud
Books are always reinventing themselves especially in the face of the ever-present threat of extinction, an indication that books will survive in newer formats long into the future. Graphic books are still holding their own even inducing people to explore non-picture, full text publications. Good Coffee Table books are multifaceted publications that are not losing their appeal despite and in spite of their pricey tags.
‘Reflection of our homeland: through my lens and life’ by Ken Lucas is a coffee table that will hold the reader’s interest book from cover to cover, between which are 342 pages of facts, figures and opinions on Guyana and over 700 images in and about Guyana, designed in such a way to ensure the reader takes away something endearing about Guyana, goading some other to try fixing what is deteriorating and inducing others to value and preserve history. Lucas is resolute that we also view photography as art. The author says that he is first an artist and then a photographer.
One example will suffice to illustrate the last mentioned issue. On page 69, bearing the caption ‘Kitty Market, Oh Boy!’ is a photograph of that market taken in 2007 ‘almost in a state of ruin’ and transformed into a pencil drawing in 2016. The information states that that social space was ‘established in 1882, two years after Bourda Market’.
The book starts off with the people who came and closes with Independence, in between, is filled with stock information on Guyana, the administrative and physical regions, details which is called ‘conversation’ on Georgetown accompanied by images. However alongside those pieces of information are some little known and interesting facts and figures, and opinions that will invite debate.
Some interesting and little known titbits include the names of the first three train engines to run in the country namely ‘Mosquito’, ‘Sand fly’ and ‘Firefly’. Talking in tree’s: when last did you see a ‘Rhode Island Roster’, a ‘Clean-neck fowl’ or a ‘Dominique fowl’.
Some features of the books are given special and extensive coverage mainly because the author had intimate relation with them including his birthplace, Linden, one of the schools he attended, West Dem Secondary, serving in the Guyana National Service at Konawaruk and Kimbia, the Teachers Training College (now Cyril Potter College of Education), places he frequented like the Promenade and Botanic Gardens, the railway terminal at Lamaha and High Streets.
Moving out of the city, his lens travelled the East Coast, West Coast to Parika, the Essequibo River (a few resorts), Potaro, Mazaruni and Kaieteur.
Apart from places, people and monuments of people who made significant contributions to the country are also featured.
Furthermore, events are given space in the range of his lens and life including our culture, and politics.
The book was edited by Kim Lucas-Felix and Rhonda Lucas-Sabater, and dedicated to the International Decade for People of African Descent.
Ken Lucas was born in the 1940s in Mckenzie, Upper Demerara River. He then attended schools according to house moves, and taught at several schools around the country after graduating from the Cyril Potter College of Education and the University of Guyana. His work experience included his attachment to the Guyana National Service for twelve years. Migrating to the United States in 1984, Lucas became a Certified Professional Photographer and created an art gallery at home. And home is where he creates art.
‘Reflection of our homeland: through my lens and life’ by Ken Lucas is a coffee table with a difference. It is a personal odyssey, invested with a human interest and coloured with a grateful heart.
Responses to this author please telephone 226-0065 of email: [email protected]
Poem
Siesta
Oh people not mine
What is it we can hear?
The old custodian
Coddles the tin box
In the empty church
The ex-monk clips his lime tree
Just so my soiled skin flensed.
From my uniform
Jesus said to them “oh ye of little faith”
Ayamonte is golden
The sun rakes over us
Meticulous and slow.
A mutt with cataracts licks its parts ticking
Portugal lies exposed on her soft cheap cot
Passive and docile unlike
That bull that is Spain.
The sea’s lips scold me in that Spanish way
Gentle and yet firm nothing here is mine.
By
Spencer Reece
