Marc Matthews (born 1940s) is a Guyanese writer, actor, broadcaster and producer.
Biography
Marc Matthews was born in
British Guiana
British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana.
The first European to encounter Guiana was S ...
Peter Kempadoo
Peter "Lauchmonen" Kempadoo (1926 – 24 August 2019) was a writer and broadcaster from Guyana. He also worked as a development worker in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. He moved in 1953 to the UK, where he built a career in print journalism a ...
produced ''Our Kind Of Folk'' for radio in Guyana.
In the 1960s Marc Matthews was in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
as a freelance reporter, involved with the UK Black Power movement and alternative theatre productions. He was closely involved with
the Caribbean Artists Movement The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) was an influential cultural initiative, begun in London, England, in 1966 and active until about 1972,Linton Kwesi Johnson, one of the most prominent younger poets to come out of CAM in the 1970s. Unlike with Johnson, Matthews's pioneering role as a
nation language "Nation language" is the term coined by scholar and poet Kamau Brathwaite McArthur, Tom,"Nation language" ''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', 1998. and now commonly preferred to describe the work of writers from the Caribbean and ...
performance poet has not been fully recognised, perhaps because his roots and material were always more Guyanese than
Black British
Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either African or Afro-Caribbean descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 76–7 ...
. Similarly, because of its nature as live theatre rather than as published scripts, his important work, first with fellow Guyanese Ken Corsbie in ''Dem Two'' in 1974, then in 1975 in ''All Ah We'', which added
John Agard
John Agard FRSL (born 21 June 1949 in British Guiana) is an Afro-Guyanese playwright, poet and children's writer, now living in Britain. In 2012, he was selected for the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
and Henry Muttoo, has largely vanished from the record, if not the memory of those who witnessed them. Only Matthews's record ''Marc-Up'' (1987) survives as a record of those days.
As the tyranny of the
Burnham Burnham may refer to:
Places Canada
*Burnham, Saskatchewan
England
*Burnham, Buckinghamshire
** Burnham railway station
** Burnham Grammar School
*Burnham Green, Hertfordshire, location of The White Horse
* Burnham, Lincolnshire
**High Burnham, ...
years worsened, Matthews settled in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, though he made one attempt to return to live in Guyana after the return of democratic government in the 1990s. In 1987, he won the Guyana Prize for his first collection of poetry, ''Guyana My Altar'' (Karnak House, 1987). (Kairi in
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
had produced an early unbound pamphlet by Matthews, ''Eleven O'Clock Goods'', in 1974.) His collection ''A Season of Sometimes'' was published by Peepal Tree Press in 1992. His work has also been anthologized in collections such as ''The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry'' (1992) and ''The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English''.Paula Burnett (ed.), ''The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English'', Penguin Books, 1986; Penguin Classics, 2005.
Around 2005 Matthews, working under the pseudonym "Tramping Man", formed a musical collaboration named Burn Brothers with two London-based producers, Jean Philippe Altier and Adam Hoyle. They were joined by saxophonist Florian Brand and performed a number of gigs in and around London in 2007. A record entitled ''Fire Exit'' was recorded and released in April 2008.
Selected bibliography
* ''Eleven O'Clock Goods'', Kairi, 1974.
* ''Guyana My Altar'' (poetry), Karnak House, 1987.
* ''A Season of Sometimes'', Peepal Tree Press, 1992