Walcott’s Poetry: Portrayal of Broken Boundaries
Dr Shri Krishan Rai
&
Dr Anugamini Rai
The well known Caribbean poet Derek Alton Walcott is an epitome of a writing which transcends all imaginative boundaries of this
World. He has given a fresh and forceful insight to view this world in a different perspective which is not guided by the laws and conventions of
colonialism. Walcott discards the preeminence of European culture even in his writing style. The abandoning of “dead metaphors”, oft repeated
metaphors used by the European authors, is one of the salient features of his poetry. Walcott marks his presence with the tinge of his regional
metaphors and provincials protagonists who bring the culture and tradition of Caribbean Countries to International forum. His epoch making epic
Omeros is “the only one to let you see the Caribbean the way it is, to feel it and smell it.” is so powerful in its claim that it fetches the most
prestigious prize (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992) for this commonwealth writer. The Prodigal of Walcott substantiates not only his post
colonial philosophy but also his faith in ‘globalization’: ‘But there was no partition in the sunshine / Of the small rusty garden that a crow /
Crossed with no permit;’.
Walcott underlines the theory of “New Nations States” with the use of Creole language, the language of the natives. This use of native
language is a noteworthy move for rejecting the coloniser's proper English Language. He rejects the proper English at many places At times he
challenges the grammar of English language by framing sentences like: ‘My body crumble, like the long, trembling ash.’
Therefore, in this proposed paper we would like to highlight the apparent and subterranean ways of Walcott weaving, highlighting and
undermining colonial hangover in his texts, culture and performance.
Key Words:
Postcolonial writing, transcending boundaries, new language, new metaphors, globalization and rule transcending language.
Derek Alton Walcott is the most important West Indian poet writing today. Revolutionary cause of native Caribbean and strong ties with
a western literary tradition are the driving forces of Walcott’s writing. On closely scrutinizing all the poetic works of Derek Walcott to date, we
can easily deduce that he tries to enhance West Indian Literature in all means. Walcott search and explore for ‘fresh metaphors’ and abandoning
the ‘borrowed metaphor’ confirms his anti colonial quest for identity with the help of language.
Walcott commences with European literary tradition and culminates with his own indigenous creations. ‘The earlier Walcott, even
including Another Life (1973) , is generally regarded as lacking the innovative freedom of language characteristics of the later’ 1. But in the later
stage of his career he has come into his own voice and authority.
The early phase marks the inception of Walcott’s poetic career as imitative and derivative phase. It was in this phase that Walcott’s first
published poem appeared in The Voice of St. Lucia on August 2, 1944 when he was fourteen years old. ‘1944’, the forty-four lines of MiltonicWordsworthian blank verse, foreshadows the reach of his poetic objective. Despite its derivativeness and stylistic rough edges, the poem depicts a
maturity beyond the poet’s age and mental level. Walcott’s relentlessly independent thinking suggests of a poet who would attract controversy. In
“1944” the young Walcott advanced the idea that one learns better about God from the teachings of nature than from the teachings of humankind
and the Church. In this phase he starts to negate the literary tradition given by the colonizers and comes with his own indigenous creations
especially, in imagery and tries to redefine his own identity.
Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), Tiepolo’s Hound (2000) and The Prodigal (2004) are the major accomplishments of the later phase
of the poetry of Derek Walcott. This is the full-grown stage of poet’s career where his works get the greatest reward in the form of Nobel Prize in
the field of literature in 1992. The four major works are all searchingly self-aware, conscious of their peculiarities of mode, of the challenge of
categorization which they represent.
Omeros is the most acclaimed work of Walcott in all aspects. It is a modern epic which is an amalgamation of myriad of things. The poet
himself is the narrator who comes in and out sporadically. This style of narration resembles The Waste Land (1922) of T. S. Eliot who uses the
character of Tiresias for the development of plot in his most renowned creation. Though the poet selects a European work as an inspiration, he has
so many references to underline his own identity; the reflection of his island. ‘The carriers were women, not the fair, gentler sex. / Instead, they
were darker and stronger, and their gait / was made beautiful by balance ... ’2
The recuperation of Africa in Caribbean consciousness is manifested in these lines. In another crucial quest, Ma Kilman’ s Journey into
the forest to find the lost African root that will heal Philoctete’s wound. The poetic language of Walcott evinces his cultural division, employing
both the formal, structured language of English verse and the colonial dialect of his native island, St Lucia.
From the very beginning of his poetic career, Walcott strikes the reader with a powerful experience of reality. His works present a pattern
which draws a link between the New World of the America and the Old World of Europe. Traditional forms including the sonnet, to examine his
divided allegiance to his people and to the dying empire that rules them, has been dexterously exploited in the very first volume of his poetry, In a
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Green Night: Poems, 1948-60 (1962). The reverberating image of the shipwreck is the key concept of Walcott’s The Castaway and Other Poems
(1965). This vision enables Walcott to examine the synthesis of Western and African civilization that he believes is necessary for the discovery of
personal and cultural identity.
The Prodigal is about the final home-coming of the poet .In this long poem Walcott has exploited the Biblical legend to put across his
perspective of life, ‘The Prodigal covers a lot of ground ,and not just spatially .With it, Walcott continues to work variations on the long narrative
mode. The poem moves back and forth in time and memory, making connections across the span of his life and his books’3. Every section of this
poem can stand on its own as a complete poem and all the sections contribute to a whole .In an interview in 1990 with J.P.White, Walcott, using
the sea as a symbol for a way of movement and being that contrasts with those of what is conventionally called history, said:
With the sea you can travel the horizon in any direction you
can go from left to right or from right to left .it doesn’t proceed
from A to B to C to D and so on.4
This description is appropriate to the movement of The Prodigal. In this creation of Walcott the commencement and the culmination is
hard to detect, the plot is almost negligible but Walcott creates a long poem with the help of his enticing writing skill. And imagery is the most
remarkable feature of his writing skill. Comprising eighteen chapters each divided in four subsections, this book is in three parts .In this kind of
structure it resembles Walcott’s Omeros (1990) and Tiepolo’s Hound (2000). Like the other creations of Walcott in this poem also one verse
sustains throughout ‘…a loose flexible blank verse, sometimes almost sliding into free verse’ 5. The narrative movement of The Prodigal is lucid
and smooth .In Part 1 and Part 2 the persona is traveling aboard ‘elsewhere’ and in the Part 3 he returns home ‘here’. This poem projects the
dialogue between ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’ which has been a noteworthy aspect of Walcott’s poetry and his self-quest since The Fortunate Traveller.
The images of Walcott look very naive but incisive. They compel the reader to rethink on the trivia which he generally leaves unnoticed.
For instance, let us look at a striking image,‘Her well oiled hair was parted in the middle / as straight as the highway into Cartagena’ 6. There is a
unique freshness in this type of images of Walcott. He exploits very common things and renders them uncommon with his remarkable writing
skills. The images related to punctuation marks show Walcott’s poetic sensibility and novelty of his perception .For instance:
Your shadow was a footnote; in some boulevard’s infinite
Paragraph7
or
Blessed are the small forms conjugating Horace,
and the olive trees as twisted as Ovid’s syntax ,8
or
…how many small crows
like commas punctuating the drifts?9
The images of Walcott evince how he imagines himself into a strange landscape, even while conveying a sense of their strangeness, they
were not exactly strange, since he had long imagined them through his reading .For instance, his aerial view of the awesome expanse of the ‘snowblanketed’ Alps is quite remarkable:
There were the absolute,
these peaks, the pitch of temperature and terror
polar rigidities that magnetized a child
these rocks bearded with icicles, crevasses
from Andersen’s ‘Ice Maiden’,Whitter’s Snow Bound ‘
this empire ,this infernity of ice.10
This shows not only his fear of height but also his deep childhood memory of fairy tales that had both inspired and terrified him .This
terror is palpable in the paradoxical coinage of ‘infernity of ice’.
“Walcott is neither a traditionalist nor a modernist, he belongs to no school ....He can be naturalist,
expressionistic surrealistic imagistic, hermetic,confessional - you name it .He simply has
absorbed,the way whales do the plankton or a paintbrush the palette ,all the stylistic idioms the north
could offer: now he is on his own and in big way…He is the man by whom the English language
lives.11
This statement of Joseph Brodsky reveals the personality of Walcott to a great extent. Walcott belongs to every schools and no school as
well. But his writing technique especially the formation of images is every close to “defamiliarisation” of Victor Shklovsky of Russian Formalism.
Following defamiliarisation Walcott sentences defamiliarise very common things of daily life and provide them the “literariness”. For instance, let
us consider the following image of a trembling ash of cigarette: ‘My body crumble, like the long, trembling ash / of a cigarette in the hand of a
scholar’12. Here the ‘crumbling of body’ and ‘trembling ash of cigarette’ both of these things are familiar to the common man but this unique
correlation provides the concept of “literariness” to common things and make them uncommon .Again he presents one more similar image: ‘The
unnamed tress forming a gentle tunnel over the buses’13.
The Prodigal suggests the paradox of Walcott’s own life .Though he loves his island, the demands and the compulsions of life drifts him
away from his intimate island. He had to stay for decades in Boston and New York. This poem is a record of a journey which has neither a
commencement nor a culmination .There is not so much plot in this poem but the poet’s fondness for metaphors turns the whole world into a
poem. For example:
Sunlight on the buildings on the hills over Genoa
In the chill spring, the gulls know each other.
Where the open channel breaks into high spray
and a sailor dips deeper and higher on the bowsprit
clouds will congeal into islands ,the rattling anchor-chain
of an archipelago; Genoa thins .
As Genoa thins,everything diminishes ,
the mountains ,the dry hill with its castle.14
And
…so an adopted city slides into me ,
till my gestures echo those of its citizens
and my shoesthat glidesover a sidewalk granting
move without fear of falling, move as if it rooted
in the metre of memory. 15
The poem gets a morose touch when the persona gets heart-rending news of his twin brother Roddy’s death .Walcott projects this gloomy situation
also with mesmerizing images:
The same silent consequence that crept across
your brother perilously sleeping, and all the others
whose silence is no different from your brother’s… .
All the questions tangle in one question.
Why does the dove moan or the horse shake its mane?
Or the lizard wait on the white wall then is gone? 16
The description of the city, Rome in Part 2 of the poem also provides a new dimension to the fresh images of Walcott: ‘I saw the walled city early
in the morning / with its sprinkled streets; under the arcades / the beggar slept, unshifting as history.’ 17 The image of the sleeping begger
“unshifting as history” is a highly refreshing and rewarding image that speaks volumes.
The concept of metaphor in the writing of Walcott is really poetic one. It comprehends figuration in the widest generic sense, as Rei
Terada also claims: ‘Metaphor function as usual, in Walcott]as a figure of figuration.’ 18 Walcott is very intimate with the natural world, especially
with his island. Consequently his most of the images are triggered by the natural surroundings of this place. This intimacy is apparent in all his
creations but it comes out very clearly in this poem at the end of Part 1 when he is back in New York City, An Italian neighbour asks him why he
didn’t stay longer in Italy and he replies, ‘I have an island’19. And later on the arrival in Cartgena from Baranquilla ,his remarks, ‘Not a new coast,
but home’20 Walcott has a close affinity with painting consequently his images are also very close to reality and depict pictorial realism and
symbolical overtones .For example:
Into this fishing village, the hot zinc noon,
its rags of shadow,the reeks from its drain,
and the mass of files around the fish-market,
where ribbed dogs skitter sideways,
is this one where you vowed a life-long fealty,
to the bloated women with ponderous breasts
and the rum-raddled, occasional fisherman,21
And
Such as an implacable lust that came with age
as a dirty old man leering at young things.22
The realistic details in the images of Walcott are quite close to the writing style of Pre-Raphaelites of Nineteenth century. These images
evoke the picture in the reader’s mind in such a manner that he starts to feel his presence in the exact ambience created by the poet.
Images and metaphors invoking the description of people, places, events,
moments, and some intangible essence such as the air; they invariably involve
the use of a plethora of colours.23
Being a Nobel Laureate Walcott is supposed to raise the issues of international stature and he performs this responsibility in his unique
manner:
But there was no partition in the sunshine
of the small rusty garden that a crow
crossed with no permit; instead the folded echo
of interrogation, of conspiracy,
surrounded it, although its open windows
were steamed envelopes.24
Through the image encapsulated in the first line ‘no partition in sunshine’ obliquely indicates Walcott’s desire for demolishing all
national geographical boundaries to promote the concept of the global village .With such eloquent images, Walcott artistically endeavours to
tackle in an inconspicuous though emphatic manner such big issues ‘internatinal brotherwood’, ‘globalisation’, ‘colonialism’ etc.
Therefore, imagery is undoubtedly Walcott’s unassailable poetic forte. With the help of images Walcott has been successful in creating a
rich textual density which adds to poetic beauty of the poem, uncovering his unique poetic skills which make him stand out as a very talented poet
in the sphere of world poetry. Derek Walcott’s poetic talent was duly recognised when the Nobel Prize was conferred on him (1992). That
imagery, which is indisputably the most striking feature, plays a pivotal role in his poetry, and nobody can deny being deeply influenced by the
charisma or hypnotism thereof. His images are so evocative and eloquent that the reader, while going through his poetry, feels as if he is
confronting in his real life the landscapes or objects painted by the poet.
While some critics opine that Walcott’s emphasis on technical adeptness resulted in neglect of the poem’s subject in favour of a word or
phrase to satisfy the structure of the sequence, others applaud his experiment as “fresh” and “challenging”. Walcott has a propensity to defy socioreligious conventions. The hallmark of Walcott’s poetry is his forthright integrity to tell the whole truth, however unpleasant, without feeling
queasy in the least. His artistic articulation of stark realities without any prejudices through his remarkable imagery speaks volumes about his
strikingly cosmopolitan outlook.
As a great poet has to be rooted to the provincial soil in order to achieve a cosmopolitan distinctiveness, Walcott is deeply rooted to
the centre of the Caribbean and poetically demonstrates ‘the power of provincialism’. Like any great poet Walcott always takes a centrifugal leap
from his provincialism to achieve a cosmopolitan height and exhibits a cosmic ecology. Though the themes of Walcott spring from his native land,
he never provincialises his local themes; to put it more succinctly Walcott’s provincialism easily assumes a unique cosmopolitanism which is a
hall-mark of his poetry. Often scrutinizing provincial, historical and social events, he reshapes the reality and presents it in a universal perspective
with a remarkable artistic ingenuity of a master craftsman meeting all possible poetic exigencies. Apart from the functional dimension of vivifying
various scenes, situations and ideas, his imagery also assumes an ornamental dimension, creating mosaic textural richness.
The verse form of his later poetry is, on the whole, freer, more open, contributing to the overall effect of comparative directness and
plainness. The rhetorical flourish and the rich melody are used now more discreetly, with more specific functional point. We can easily perceive a
pattern or interplay of images evincing remarkable artistic effectiveness and poetic ingenuity of Walcott.
Demonstrating his vital poetic strategy, Walcott is doubtless at his best when he portrays undiluted social reality through common images
though presented with an uncommon jerk. Spotlighting his vision of life, which is basically dismal and deeply humanistic, he explores various
socially relevant concerns which evoke at once the local and the universal, the contemporary and the perennial. A remarkable fusion of the local
and the universal also vivifies his vision. But what is really remarkable is his commendable capacity to commingle contemporaneity with
“unshifting history” which renders his poetry profoundly meaningful and, above all undying.
Walcott’s variegated images, ranging from visual to auditory, geographical to zoological, meteorological to botanical and oceanic to
landscapic, help him to configurate his poetic sensibility with remarkable artistic finesse. Walcott successfully transcends any kind of poetic
mediocrity by an evocative image, or cadence, or by the jolt of an unexpected metaphor. And it is this evocativeness of image or unexpectedness
of metaphor that not only prevents him from slipping into any kind of mediocrity which very many average poets fall prey to but also distinguishes
him notably from very many contemporary practitioners of world poetry.
Walcott’s message, highly subtle though considerably eloquent, is patently communicated through his immensely impressive imagery in
his poetry that man can draw a lot of sustenance from umbilical cord being unsevered from the humanistic womb even while man is lying
groaning on the debris of shattered values.
Walcott’s poetry, basically because of his artistically startling imagery communicating his positive eloquent message for humanity, will
certainly have imperishable importance and undying value. Consequently, it would not be an exaggeration to comment that Derek Walcott is one
of the most proficient living players of language who scraps for the cause of Caribbean’ and imagines a world without political and social
boundaries.
Notes
1. Ismond, Patricia. Abandoning Dead Metaphors: The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott’s Poetry (Jamaica: University of West
Indies, 2001), p. 2.
2. Omeros New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990, p.74.
3. Baugh, Edward Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 223.
4. Baer, William. Conversation with Derek Walcott (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1996), pp. 158-159.
5. Baugh, Edward Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 223.
6. Walcott, Derek. The Prodigal (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), p.43.
7. Ibid., p. 30.
8. Ibid., p.17.
9. Ibid., p.10.
10. Ibid., p.14.
11. Brodsky, Joseph. “Blurb” of The Prodigal by Derek Walcott (London: Faber and Faber, 2005).
12. Walcott, Derek. The Prodigal (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), p.21.
13. Ibid., p. 29.
14. Ibid., p. 91.
15. Ibid., p. 88.
16. Ibid., pp. 86-87.
17. Ibid., p.47.
18. Oloagun, Modupe. “Sensuous Images in Derek Walcott’s Another Life” World Literature Written in English, Vol.27 No.1,
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
(1987) p.107.
Walcott, Derek. op.cit. p.39.
Ibid., p.45.
Ibid., p.94.
Ibid., p. 32.
Terada, Rei. Derek Walcott’s Poetry: American Mimicry (Boston; Northeastern University Press, 1992), p.10.
Walcott, Derek. op.cit. p.32.
Bibliography
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Baugh, Edward. Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Bobb, June. Beating a Resteless Drum: The Poetics of Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998.
Brown, Lloyd. “Caribbean Castaway New World Odyssey: Derek Walcott’s Poetry”. Journal of Commonwealth Literature 11, no. 2 (December
1976): 149-59.
Heaney, Seamus. “The Language of Exile”, Parnassus: Poetry in Review 8, no. 1 (Fall-Winter 1979): 5-11.
Ismond, Patricia. Abandoning Dead Metaphors: The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott’s Poetry (Jamaica: University of West Indies, 2001).
King, Bruce. Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Literature Written in English, Vol.27 No.1,( 1987).
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Shri Krishan Rai is an Assistant Professor of English at National Institute of Technology Durgapur, WB, India. He has published several research
papers in National and International peer-reviewed journals. At present he is working on Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Anugamini Rai teaches English at NPTI Durgapur, WB, India. Post colonial literature is her area of interest. At present she is working on religion
and literature.