to understand any of his poetry, you need to know about martin carter and about what he stood for and what he represented while he was alive.
martin carter was a guyanese poet and social activist. during his early twenties he became heavily involved in movements for independance. this, would later be tha cause of his arrest. during his spell in jail he would go on to compose his most important collection, Poems of Resistance, which was eventually published in London, in 1954.
i've heard that carter wrote letters to his wife, from jail, in the form of poems. i'm not sure how true this is, but assuming that it is true the "my love" he speaks to in This is the dark time, my love.
so moving on to the actual poem :D
the poem is set in British Guiana at the time when the governor suspended the constitution and British soilders were sent in to "maintain order"
"this is he dark time, my love
all round the land brown beetles crawl about"
where he says "this is the dark time", he is speaking about how the people of Guyana, or rather British Guiana, as it was known then, were being oppressed and were being denied basic human rights.
he uses the term "brown beetles" to speak about the soilders. this comparison is because of the earth couloured uniforms the soilders would have worn and the vehicles they drove.
"the sun is hidden in the sky
red flowers bend their heads in awful sorrow"
the sun is a symbol of hope and the fact that it is "hidden in the sky" shows just how bleaque things are.
red refers to the blood of inncoent people spilt and the people's love for their counrty (as they are fighting for independance)
"This is the dark time, my love,
It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears.
It is the festival of guns, the carnival of misery
Everywhere the faces of men are strained and anxious"
he repeats "this is the dark time my love" to stress the dire situation.
"oppression" speaks of how the people are being treated by the soilders. "dark metal" this may be a referance to guns or the jail cells. "tears" is simply used to emphasize the sorrow of the people.
"festival of guns" and "carnival of misery" are oxymorons (when 2 contradictory terms are brought together"
carnival and festival = happy :D
guns and misery = sad :(
"Everywhere the faces of men are strained and anxious" this is simply descriptive.
"Who comes walking in the dark night time?
Whose boot of steel tramps down the slender grass
It is the man of death, my love, the stranger invader
Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream."
the use of rethorical question here makes the reader wonder if these people ever, at any point in time, experience a feeling of security.
"It is the man of death, my love, the stranger invader" this is a metaphor which comapres colonialism to a death sentence.
"Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream" again a metaphor. this line speaks of oppression dealing a deathly blow to their dreams of independance; the future seems dismal.
there are many figures of speech in this peom which i didn't highlight, mostly because they are quite obvious and i really didn't want to.
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