Derek Alton Walcott

Background

Walcott was born and raised in Castries, Saint Lucia, in the West Indies, the son of Alix (Maarlin) and Warwick Walcott. He had a twin brother, the playwright Roderick Walcott, and a sister, Pamela Walcott. His family is of English, Dutch and African descent, reflecting the complex colonial history of the island that he explores in his poetry. His mother, a teacher, loved the arts and often recited poetry around the house. His father, who painted and wrote poetry, died at the age of 31 from mastoiditis while his wife was pregnant with the twins Derek and Roderick. Walcott's family was part of a minority Methodist community, who felt overshadowed by the dominant Catholic culture of the island established during French colonial rule.

Education

As a young man Walcott trained as a painter, mentored by Harold Simmons, whose life as a professional artist provided an inspiring example for him. Walcott greatly admired Cézanne and Giorgione and sought to learn from them. Walcott's painting was later exhibited at the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City, along with the art of other writers, in a 2007 exhibition named "The Writer's Brush: Paintings and Drawing by Writers". He received his early education at St. Mary's College in Castries and obtained a scholarship to attend the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, where he majored in French, English, and Spanish, graduating in 1950. He published his first literary work, 25 Poems, in 1948 while he was still an undergraduate.

Career

Former teacher, St. Lucia, Grenada, Jamaica; poet-in-residence Hollins College, Roanoke, Veterans Administration, 1980; professor poetry and playwriting Boston University, 1981—2007; distinguished scholar in residence University Alberta, Edmonton,, Canada, since 2009; professor poetry University Essex, Colchester, England, since 2010; Founder St. Lucia Arts Guild, 1950, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 1981; founding director Trinidad Theatre Workshop, 1959—1971

Walcott also wrote art and literary criticism for Trinidad's Guardian and for Jamaica's Public Opinion. After graduation, he worked as a teacher on several Caribbean islands and also started writing plays. One of his first dramatic creations was Henri Christophe: A Chronicle, which he wrote and staged in Trinidad in 1950. He was awarded a scholarship by the Rockefeller Foundation to study theatrical directing from 1957 to 1958. In 1959, when he returned to Trinidad, he founded the Carib Theater, which later became the Trinidad Theater Workshop.

Walcott's first major poetic work was In a Green Night: Poems: 1948-60. It was published in 1962 and brought him major recognition as a poet. It was followed by, among others, Selected Poems (1964), The Castaway and Other Poems (1965), The Gulf and Other Poems (1969), Another Life (1973), Sea Grapes (1976), The Fortunate Traveler (1982), Midsummer (1984), The Arkansas Testament (1987), Omeros (1990), and The Bounty (1997). Omeros is an epic poem inspired by The Odyssey but adapted to the Caribbean.

The themes of Walcott's works are varied. One critic summarized them as: "his choice of vocation as a poet, his dilemma as perennial outsider . . . his affection for that island, his desire to give a voice to a voiceless society colliding with his knowledge that he must leave his country to survive as a poet". Like the works of most of the Caribbean writers profiled in this book, Walcott's poetry explores the inherent realities and contradictions of a Caribbean writer who writes in English and is influenced by European cultures and styles, but who was raised and educated in a completely different cultural world. The critics who review his work almost always point to the ever-present conflicts that exist between those "classic" European forces that influenced him during his upbringing and the images of the Caribbean that he has depicted.

His work explores, and tries to unravel, the inner significance and meanings of Caribbean cultures in light of the historical and social background and changes that have shaped the West Indies. Another critic has written that "Walcott's plays and poems are distinguished by the tensions between the European and African Caribbean Cultures and by the resolution of those tensions". Walcott, like Caribbean writers Austin C. Clarke and Nicolás Guillén, has been praised for translating into his poetry the linguistic nuances and speech pat-terns of West Indian people.

Although commended most often for his poetry, Walcott is also a talented painter and playwright. His colorful and stylized paintings frequently illustrate the covers of his books. He has written and staged dozens of plays. Most of his dramatic works follow the same thematic and ideological lines as his poetry. Among the most important are Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1957), Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967), and The Capeman (1998). The Capeman, a musical written with Paul Simon, is based on the events surrounding a 1959 gang murder in New York City. Because the main character is Puerto Rican, Walcott explored the island's culture. However, critics panned the show and Puerto Ricans in New York City thought it romanticized violence and crime and perpetuated negative ethnic stereotypes.

Works

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• Other Work

  • Paul Simon: Songs From The Capeman by Paul Simon (1998-01-01)

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  • Sea Grapes

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  • Ti Jean and His Brothers (A Play)
  • Another Life
  • Collected Poems, 1948-1984
  • Omeros
  • White Egrets: Poems

  • Author: (poetry collections) 25 Poems, 1948, Epitaph for the Young: A Poem in XII Cantos, 1949, Poems, 1951, In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960, 1962, Selected Poems, 1964, The Castaway and Other Poems, 1965 (Heinemann award, Royal Society Lit., 1966), The Gulf and Other Poems, 1969 (Cholmondeley award, Society Authors, 1969), Another Life, 1973 (New Statesman Jock Campbell award, 1974), Sea Grapes, 1976, The Star-Apple Kingdom, 1979, Selected Poetry, 1981, The Fortunate Traveller, 1981, The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden, 1983, Midsummer, 1984, Collected Poems, 1948-1984, 1986 (Los Angeles Times Book prize, 1986), The Arkansas Testament, 1987, Omeros, 1990 (W.H. Smith Lit. award, 1991), The Bounty, 1997, Tiepolo's Hound, 2000, The Prodigal, 2004, Selected Poems, 2007, White Egrets, 2010, (plays) Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes, 1950, Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio Production, 1951, Wine of the Country, 1953, The Sea at Dauphin: A Play in One Act, 1954, Ione, 1957, Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama, 1958 (Jamaica Drama Festival prize, 1958), Ti-Jean and His Brothers, 1958, Malcochon: or, Six in the Rain, 1966, Dream on Monkey Mountain, 1967 (Obie award, 1971), In a Fine Castle, 1970, The Joker of Seville, 1974, O Babylon!, 1976, Remembrance, 1977, Pantomime, 1978, The Isle Is Full of Noises, 1982, The Last Carnival, 1986, Beef, No Chicken, 1986, A Branch of the Blue Nile, 1986, Steel, 1991, Odyssey: A Stage Version, 1993, The Capeman, 1997, Walker and The Ghost Dance, 2002.

Views

Methodism and spirituality have played a significant role from the beginning, in Walcott's work. He commented "I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a vocation, a religious vocation". He describes the experience of the poet: "the body feels it is melting into what it has seen… the “I” not being important. That is the ecstasy...Ultimately, it’s what Yeats says: 'Such a sweetness flows into the breast that we laugh at everything and everything we look upon is blessed.' That’s always there. It’s a benediction, a transference. It’s gratitude, really. The more of that a poet keeps, the more genuine his nature". He notes that "if one thinks a poem is coming on...you do make a retreat, a withdrawal into some kind of silence that cuts out everything around you. What you’re taking on is really not a renewal of your identity but actually a renewal of your anonymity".

Quotations: Forty years gone, in my island childhood, I felt that

the gift of poetry had made me one of the chosen,

that all experience was kindling to the fire of the Muse. (in the poem "Midsummer" (1984))

Walcott's friend Joseph Brodsky commented: "For almost forty years his throbbing and relentless lines kept arriving in the English language like tidal waves, coagulating into an archipelago of poems without which the map of modern literature would effectively match wallpaper. He gives us more than himself or 'a world'; he gives us a sense of infinity embodied in the language."

Interests

• Writers

  T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Defoe, Dickens, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop.

Connections

Spouse Fay Moston, 1954 (divorce 1959). Spouse Margaret Ruth Maillard, 1962 (divorce). Spouse Norline Metivier, 1976 (divorce).

Son:

Peter Walcott

Daughter:

Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw

Daughter:

Anna Walcott-Hardy

Brother:

Roderick Walcott