As a young socialist in the colony of British Guiana, Martin Carter wrote strong, vigorous poems that connect powerfully with the reader, that fire the spirit, that are impossible to forget, that live on in the culture of the Caribbean. A committed freedom fighter for his people, "welding my flesh to freedom" with his pen, Carter was known as the Poet of Resistance, and today is recognized as one of the greatest poets of the region, if not the world. The poems that he wrote in jail have a special resonance of challenge, hope and brotherhood as well as outrage, grief and desolation. In later years, after independence had been won but the national vision lost to corrupt racial politics, Carter's work became more meditative, as out of his bitter disappointments he developed his philosophy of the place, the purpose and the possibilities of man.