Slade Hopkinson (1934 – 1993) was a

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

-born poet, playwright, actor and teacher.

Early life

Slade Hopkinson was born into a middle-class family in

New Amsterdam, Guyana New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam) is the regional capital of East Berbice-Corentyne, Guyana and one of the country's largest towns. It is from the capital, Georgetown and located on the eastern bank of the Berbice River, upriver from its ...

. His father was a barrister-at-law, and his mother a nurse. A few years after the death of his father, his mother took Slade and his sister to live in

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

where he attended Harrison College. In 1952, he went to the

University College of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the ...

on a scholarship, coinciding with

Derek Walcott Sir Derek Alton Walcott (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem ''Omeros'' (1990), which many critics view "as Walcot ...

and

Mervyn Morris Mervyn Eustace Morris OM (born 21 February 1937) is a poet and professor emeritus at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. According to educator Ralph Thompson, "In addition to his poetry, which has ranked him among the top West In ...

as students. Slade Hopkinson was active in university theatre. He directed ''

Oedipus Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...

'' and ''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...

''. He obtained his BA in 1953 and a Dip. Ed. in 1956.

Career

He worked in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

as a teacher, weekly newspaper editor, and a government information officer. He married (Freda) and had two children, Nalo (a novelist) and Keita (a painter and the founder of TorontoJazzBu

. In 1962 the family went to live in Trinidad and Slade Hopkinson joined Derek Walcott's

Trinidad Theatre Workshop Trinidad Theatre Workshop was founded in 1959, by 1992 Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, with his twin brother Roderick Walcott and performers including Beryl McBurnie, Errol Jones and Stanley Marshall, and started at the Little Carib Theatre before ...

and was a celebrated Corporal Lestrade in Dream on Monkey Mountain. He studied at the

Yale Drama School The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in ...

on a Rockefeller scholarship between 1965 and 1966, taught at the

University of Guyana The University of Guyana, in Georgetown, Guyana, is Guyana's national higher education institution. It was established in April 1963 with the following Mission: "To discover, generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the highest standard for ...

(1966–68), then returned to the TTW. However, by 1970 there was a falling out with Walcott and he founded the Caribbean Theatre Guild in 1970. His writing career began in 1954 with the publication of ''The Four and Other Poems''; the plays, ''The Blood of a Family'' (1957), ''Fall of a Chief'' (1965), ''The Onliest Fisherman'' (1967), and ''Spawning of Eel'' (1968), rewritten as ''Sala and The Long Vacation''. In 1976 the Government of Guyana published two companion collections of poetry, ''The Madwoman of Papine'', which contained mainly his secular poems ranging over his Caribbean experiences, and ''The Friend'', which contained his religious and philosophical poems, written in the process of discovering the teachings of the Sufis. Hopkinson was also active in the "Anira" literary group, which operated out of the home of

Martin Carter Martin Wylde Carter (7 June 1927 – 13 December 1997) was a Guyanese poet and political activist. Widely regarded as the greatest Guyanese poet, and one of the most important poets of the Caribbean region, Carter is best known for his p ...

's mother and included Carter, Sydney Singh,

Jan Carew Jan Rynveld Carew (24 September 1920 – 6 December 2012) was a Guyana-born novelist, playwright, poet and educator, who lived at various times in The Netherlands, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Ghana, Jamaica, Canada and the United States. ...

, Milton Vishnu Williams and others. In addition, Hopkinson wrote a couple of short stories, and his poetry was widely published in journals such as ''

Bim ''Bim'' is a 1974 Trinidad and Tobago film written by Raoul Pantin and directed by Hugh A. Robertson. It was described by Bruce Paddington as "one of the most important films to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago and... one of the classics of Ca ...

'', ''

Savacou ''Savacou: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement'' was a journal of literature, new writing and ideas founded in 1970 as a small co-operative venture, led by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, ...

'', ''New World'' and in anthologies such as ''Anansesem'', ''The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse'' and ''Voiceprint''. ''Snowscape With Signature'', a selection of the poems written between 1952 and 1992, was published by Peepal Tree Press in 1993, with an introductory memoir by

Later life

Slade Hopkinson became a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

in 1964, changing his name to Abdhur Rahman Slade Hopkinson. By 1970 he was suffering from kidney failure and by 1973 was on regular dialysis, bringing to an end his acting career. He worked for the Jamaican Tourist Board for some years before moving to Canada as Vice-Consul for Guyana. Later he worked as a classroom assistant and teacher before taking long-term disability leave. Abdhur-Rahman Slade Hopkinson, by then suffering a

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

of the kidneys, died just before the publication in 1993 of the ''Snowscape With Signature'' collection.

Selected works

* ''The onliest fisherman: a medium-length play in 1-act''. Kingston Extra-Mural Department of the University College of the West Indies, 1950. * ''The four: and other poems''. arbados dvocate Co. 1954. * ''The madwoman of Papine: poems''. Georgetown, Guyana: Ministry of Education and Social Development, 1976. * 'Electric Eel Song'. In Stewart Brown,

and Gordon Rohlehr, eds., ''Voiceprint: an anthology of oral and related poetry from the Caribbean'', Harlow: Longman Caribbean, 1989. * 'Marcus Aurelius and the Transatlantic Baakoo'. In Mervyn Morris, ed., ''The Faber Book of Contemporary Short Stories'', London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990. * ''Snowscape With Signature: Poems, 1952-1992''. Leeds, England: Peepal Tree, 1993.

External links

A Critical Appreciation of ''Abdur-Rahman Slade Hopkinson’s Marcus Aurelius and the Transatlantic Baakoo''

Critical review of ''Snowscape With Signature''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkinson, Abdur Guyanese poets Guyanese dramatists and playwrights Guyanese short story writers Guyanese Muslims Converts to Islam Deaths from kidney cancer 1934 births 1993 deaths Yale School of Drama alumni 20th-century poets People from New Amsterdam, Guyana