Guyanese poet finds belonging in poetry and T&T

Ruth Osman, featured in this Sunday’s Bookshelf, was shortlisted for the Bocas Lit Emerging Writers Fellowship 2022, she is a Guyanese singer/ songwriter/flautist and poet based in T&T.

Osman’s poem “Lost and Found” received an Honourable Mention in the 52nd New Millennium Writing Awards. Her debut collection, “All Made of Longing,” was published by Bamboo Talk Press in October 2023. Like most Caribbean people, Osman says she is a “confluence of ethnicities, traditions, and perspectives.” Poetry helps her to “make sense of those rich, diverse, and sometimes incongruent legacies. Through it, I connect with my deeper selves, my community, my ancestors, other beings (living and nonliving), and their stories.”

Osman believes her writing is “both map-making and meaning-making. I am, in essence, exploring the contours of individual and collective experience. And in doing so, I find rich compost for an evolving sense of belonging and purpose.” In an interview with Stabroek News last year, ahead of the publication of her debut collection “All Made of Longing” published by Bamboo Talk Press, Osman said that “as an artist, she considers herself a ‘cultural entrepreneur.”

Osman uses poetry and music (she is a flautist), among other art forms, to express herself. “Poetry has this beautiful way of getting to the root of life, who we are and why we live, through metaphors and symbolisms. Song is interesting because I get to use melody and poetry. I love that interplay.”

Osman also shares her development ideals with the T&T Philosophical Society. Osman told Stabroek News that as the only surviving child of Yvonne and the late journalist Raschid Osman, she was born when her parents were in their late thirties. “They told my mom and dad not to try for another baby if I didn’t survive and if my mom wanted to live. My parents raised me with that sense of a third chance and the preciousness of life. I always felt loved in a particular kind of way.”

“I am, in essence, exploring the contours of individual and collective experience. And in doing so, I find rich compost for an evolving sense of belonging and purpose.”  Ruth Osman As an only child, Osman felt she matured early as she spent a lot of time surrounded by adults, art, her father’s books, reading the classics, being exposed to old films, and attending church. She eventually moved to Trinidad after feeling “cloistered and closed off” in Guyana.

Once she was exposed to the diverse society of Trinidad, Osman says, there was no going back. Black Cake The last slice of my mother’s black cake leans against the silvered sides of the Danish butter cookie tin, sliver-thin and crumbling. “You don’t savour things,” you chide, spearing it into your mouth— the one morsel I saved for you.

I tried.

But cane stalks swaying over bodies bent, falling to the glint of iron beneath a marauding sunburnt sugar, treacly and intractable, congealing from golden-brown to bitter blackcake batter bubbling in the oven’s heart, a rising tide of rebellion songs, redolent with spice, drifting through the louvres ... I couldn’t deny it— this dark flame fuelled by brandy and rum, pretence distilled to desire. What does such fire have to do with savouring? The Centre Here we stand, palm to palm, a spider’s web spanning oceans, our threads anchored to brutal histories, buoyed by renegade winds. Along the arc of our intentions, fugitive futures bloom, tight buds tethered to loam, nurtured by hands grown craggy with toil, grimed with the soil of our aspirations.

Here is the centre— in the fellowship of trees dancing to the wind’s lavway.

Here is the centre— where feet drum earth and rum flows for the gods of marronage.

Here is the centre— where old stories gather flesh and come alive as we blow on their bones. Here is the centre— the black hole that pulls us in and through to new horizons, blue with promise.

Here is the centre. Here is the centre. Here is the centre.

Edges Why she hadda be loud so? Sharp so? All clavicles and cheekbones retorts and teeth blackstrap molasses on the back of the tongue refusing to go down a splinter of bone lodged in the throat? My edges sanded to sanctimonious smoothness guilted with Wednesday’s ashes shrivel and shrink as she passes paper held to flame. I see you, sister. I want to be you, sister. My father claps our roti oiled hands gleaming then divides steaming hills of rice and dhal with knife and fork so I could learn ‘the proper way’— self-mutilation with a serving of table talk. I see you, sister. I want to be you, sister The bedroom door creaks impales me with a shaft of light a butterfly pinned to the sheets. Sweaty palms trembling thighs. I wonder why but my body knows.

I see you, sister. I want to be you, sister.

“Why are you always so angry?” A lover pries. I cross my legs smile cloak the glint of steel behind my eyes. I see you, sister. I want to be you, sister.

The Gentle Rain Gentle— this rain bent over the land. It trails along ridges, teases mountain peaks, brushes leaves and petals lightly settles, seeps into soil that sighing surrenders its fragrance. Oh rain show me how it could be— ravage me. Worship The muezzin’s cry flies across centuries of dark water and settles in my mango tree— a blue saki calling to its companion in my belly. Our eyes track the shock of electric blue through leaves dancing in dappled light. “Ever noticed how they’re always in pairs?” you ask. An adhan unfurls in my chest flutters up my throat sits on my tongue warbling. We are all made of longing.

End of Excerpt

Ruth Osman work has been published in Mulberry Literary, The Paper Crow, and Showcase: Object & Idea, among others. Osman is employed as a Speechwriter/researcher at the Ministry of Public Utilities in T&T.