Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott Walcott at an honorary dinner in Amsterdam, May 20th 2008 Born January 23, 1930 (1930-01-23) (age 81) Castries, Saint Lucia Occupation Poet, playwright, professor Nationality Saint Lucia Notable award(s) Nobel Prize in Literature 1992 Children Peter Walcott, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Anna Walcott-Hardy Signature The Hon. Derek Alton Walcott, OCC (born January 23, 1930) is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 19921 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets.2 His works include the Homeric epic Omeros. 3 Contents 1 Life and career 2 Work 3 Sexual harassment controversies 4 Awards and honours 5 Works 5.1 Poetry collections 5.2 Plays 5.3 Other books 6 Further reading 7 See also 8 References 9 External links 9.1 Profiles 9.2 Articles and interviews Life and career Walcott was born in Castries, Saint Lucia, in the West Indies. As a young man he trained as a painter and then as a writer, influenced by modernist poets T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. 3 Walcott published his first poem at 14 and by 19 had self-published his two first collections, 25 Poems (1948) and Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos (1949), which he distributed himself. 4 With a scholarship he studied at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica 5 then moving to Trinidad in 1953, becoming a critic, teacher and journalist. 5 Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959 and remains active with its Board of Directors. 4 Exploring the Caribbean and its history in a colonialist and post-colonialist context, his collection In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 (1962) saw him gain an international public profile. 3He founded the Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981. Walcott taught literature and writing at Boston University, retiring in 2007. His later collections include Tiepolo’s Hound (2000),6The Prodigal (2004) and White Egrets (2010), which was the recipient of the T.S. Eliot Prize. 3 5 Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, the first Caribbean writer to receive the honor. The Nobel committee described his work as “a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.” 3 In 2009, he began a three-year distinguished scholar-in-residence position at the University of Alberta. In 2010, he became Professor of Poetry at the University of Essex.7 Work This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (January 2011) Robert Graves wrote that Walcott "handles English with a closer understanding of its inner magic than most, if not any, of his contemporaries”.8 Walcott's friend and mentor 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." 4 Walcott's work is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. His epic poem Omeros, is an allusive, loose reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey within the Caribbean and beyond to Africa, New England, the American West, Canada, and London (with frequent reference to the Greek Islands). Omeros explores the complex cultural strains that converge in his native Saint Lucia, celebrating the European, Amerindian, and African heritage shared by the islanders. Walcott has published more than twenty plays. The majority of these plays have been produced by the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, and have also been widely staged elsewhere. Many of them deal, either directly or indirectly, with the liminal status of the West Indies in the postcolonial period. Epistemological, ontological, economic, political, and social themes make regular appearances in Walcott's plays. In his 1970 essay on art (and specifically theatre) in his native region, What the Twilight Says: An Overture (published in Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays), Walcott bemoaned the lasting effects of over 400 years of colonial rule. He reflected on the West Indies as colonized space, and the problems presented by a region with little in the way of truly indigenous forms, and with little national or nationalist identity. He states: “We are all strangers here... Our bodies think in one language and move in another". Discussions of epistemological effects of colonization inform plays such as Ti-Jean and his Brothers and Pantomime. One of the eponymous brothers in Ti-Jean and his Brothers (Mi-Jean) is shown to have much information, but to truly know nothing. Every line Mi-Jean recites is rote knowledge gained from the coloniser, and as such is unable to be synthesized and thus is inapplicable to his existence as colonised person. Walcott's plays weave together a variety of forms; including those of the folktale, morality play, allegory, fable and ritual as well as using emblematic and mythological characters to address issues in non-realistic ways. Sexual harassment controversies In 1981 Walcott was accused of sexual harassment of a freshman student at Harvard University, and 9 reached a settlement in 1996 over a sexual harassment allegation at Boston University.10 In 2009, Walcott became a leading candidate for the position of Oxford Professor of Poetry but withdrew his candidancy after a whispering campaign raised the profile of earlier sexual harassment allegations. No new information about the well-publicised 1996 case came to light at this time.11 The position was awarded to Ruth Padel, but she resigned after only nine days when her involvement in the smear campaign against Walcott was revealed. Padel's comportment in the affair was roundly criticized by a number of respected poets in a letter of support addressed to Walcott and published in the Times Literary Supplement12 Awards and honours 1969 Cholmondeley Award 1971 Obie Award for Dream on Monkey Mountain 1981 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship OBIE ("genius award") 1988 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 1990 Arts Council of Wales International Writers Prize 1990 WH Smith Literary Award for Omeros 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature 2008 Honorary doctorate from the University of Essex 2011 T.S. Eliot Prize for White Egrets 2 Works Poetry collections 1948 25 Poems 1949 Epitaph for the Young: Xll Cantos 1951 Poems 1962 In a Green Night: Poems 1948—60 1964 Selected Poems 1965 The Castaway and Other Poems 1969 The Gulf and Other Poems 1973 Another Life 1976 Sea Grapes 1979 The Star-Apple Kingdom 1981 Selected Poetry 1981 The Fortunate Traveller 1983 The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden 1984 Midsummer 1986 Collected Poems, 1948-1984 1987 The Arkansas Testament 1990 Omeros 1997 The Bounty 2000 Tiepolo's Hound 2004 The Prodigal 2007 Selected Poems (Edited, selected, and with an introduction by Edward Baugh) 2010 White Egrets Plays (1950) Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes (1951) Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio Production (1953) Wine of the Country (1954) The Sea at Dauphin: A Play in One Act (1957) Ione (1958) Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama (1958) Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1966) Malcochon: or, Six in the Rain (1967) Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970) In a Fine Castle (1974) The Joker of Seville (1974) The Charlatan (1976) O Babylon! (1977) Remembrance (1978) Pantomime (Walcott play) (1980) The Joker of Seville and O Babylon!: Two Plays (1982) The Isle Is Full of Noises (1986) Three Plays (The Last Carnival, Beef, No Chicken, and A Branch of the Blue Nile) (1991) Steel (1993) Odyssey: A Stage Version (1997) The Capeman (lyrics, in collaboration with Paul Simon) (2002) Walker and The Ghost Dance Other books (1950) Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes, Barbados Advocate (Barbados) (1990) The Poet in the Theatre, Poetry Book Society (London) (1993) The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory Farrar, Straus (New York) (1996) Conversations with Derek Walcott, University of Mississippi (Jackson, MS) (1996) (With J Brodsky and S Heaney) Homage to Robert Frost Farrar, Straus (New York) (1998) What the Twilight Says (essays), Farrar, Straus (New York, NY) (2002) Walker and Ghost Dance, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY) (2004) Another Life: Fully Annotated, Lynne Rienner Publishers (Boulder, CO) Further reading Baer, William, ed. Conversations with Derek Walcott. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1996. Baugh, Edward, Derek Walcott: Memory as Vision: Another Life. London: Longman, 1978. Baugh, Edward, Derek Walcott. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Breslin, Paul. Nobody's Nation: Reading Derek Walcott. Chicago: U. Chicago, 2001. ISBN 0-226-07426-9 Brown, Stewart, ed., The Art of Derek Walcott. Chester Springs, PA.: Dufour, 1991; Bridgend: Seren Books, 1992. Burnett, Paula, Derek Walcott: Politics and Poetics. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. Gazzoni, Andrea, Epica dell'arcipelago. Il racconto della tribù, Derek Walcott, "Omeros". Firenze: Le Lettere, 2009. ISBN 88-6087-288-X Hamner, Robert D., Ed. Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents, 1993. ISBN 0-89410-142-0 Hamner, Robert D. Derek Walcott. Updated Edition. Twayne's World Authors Series. TWAS 600. New York: Twayne, 1993. Heaney, Seamus, ‘The Murmur of Malvern’, in The Government of the Tongue: The 1986 T. S. Eliot Memorial Lectures and Other Critical Writings. London: Faber and Faber, 1988, pp. 23–29. King, Bruce, Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama: ‘Not Only a Playwright But a Company’: The Trinidad Theatre Workshop 1959-1993. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. King, Bruce, Derek Walcott, A Caribbean Life. Oxford: OUP, 2000. Lennard, John, 'Derek Walcott' in Jay Parini, ed., World Writers in English. 2 vols, New York & London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2004, II.721–46. Parker, Michael and Roger Starkey, Eds. New Casebooks: Postcolonial Literatures: Achebe, Ngugi, Desai, Walcott. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1995. ISBN 0-333-60801-1 Sinnewe, Dirk, Divided to the Vein? Derek Walcott’s Drama and the Formation of Cultural Identities. Saarbrücken: Königshausen und Neumann, 2001 [Reihe Saarbrücker Beiträge 17]. ISBN 3-8260-2073-1 Terada, Rei, Derek Walcott’s Poetry: American Mimicry. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992. Thieme, John, Derek Walcott. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999. Walcott, Derek. Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays. New York: Farrar, 1970. ISBN 0-374-50860-7 See also Black Nobel Prize laureates References ^ Nobel profile ^ a b "TS Eliot prize goes to Derek Walcott for 'moving and technically flawless' work". Guardian 24 January 2011 ^ a b c d e Poetry Foundation profile ^ a b c Academy of American poets profile ^ a b c British Council Profile ^ essay on the book length poem Tiepolo’s Hound Poets.org ^ "Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is new Professor of Poetry". University of Essex. 2009-12-11. http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/event.aspx?e_id=1156. Retrieved 2010-01-10.  ^ The Great Modern Poets; Google books ^ Dziech, Billie Wright; Linda Weiner (1990). The lecherous professor: sexual harassment on campus (second ed.). Urbana. IL: University of Illinois Press. pp. 29–31. ISBN 0252061187. http://books.google.com/books?id=Cy9g0huofa0C.  ^ "Sex Pest File Gives Oxford Poetry Race a Nasty Edge.", in The Sunday Times, May 10, 2009 ^ Khan, Urmee; Eden, Richard (2009-05-24). "Ruth Padel under pressure to resign Oxford post over emails about rival poet Derek Walcott". London: Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5378474/Ruth-Padel-under-pressure-to-resign-Oxford-post-over-emails-about-rival-poet-Derek-Walcott.html. Retrieved 2009-05-24.  ^ Al Alvarez, Alan Brownjohn, Carmen Bugan, David Constantine, Elizabeth Cook, Robert Conquest, Jonty Driver, Seamus Heaney, Jenny Joseph, Grevel Lindop, Patrick McGuiness, Lucy Newlyn, Bernard O’Donoghue, Michael Schmidt, Jon Stallworthy, Michael Suarez, Don Thomas, Anthony Thwaite, 'Oxford Professor of Poetry', Times Literary Supplement, June 3, 2009, p 6. External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Derek Walcott Profiles British Council writers' profile, works listing, critical review Poetry Archive profile, poems written and audio Poetry Foundation profile and poems Poetry of American Poets profile, poems audio and written Profile, interviews, articles, archive. Prague Writers' Festival Articles and interviews "Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37" by The Paris Review Winter 1986 Lannan Foundation Reading and Conversation With Glyn Maxwell. November 2002 (audio). "Calabash ‘08" May 2008. Audio interview, poetry, essay. "Beyond Regrets", review of White Egrets in the Oxonian Review June, 2010 • Issue 12.4 v · d · eNobel Laureates in Literature Saul Bellow (1976) · Vicente Aleixandre (1977) · Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978) · Odysseas Elytis (1979) · Czesław Miłosz (1980) · Elias Canetti (1981) · Gabriel García Márquez (1982) · William Golding (1983) · Jaroslav Seifert (1984) · Claude Simon (1985) · Wole Soyinka (1986) · Joseph Brodsky (1987) · Naguib Mahfouz (1988) · Camilo José Cela (1989) · Octavio Paz (1990) · Nadine Gordimer (1991) · Derek Walcott (1992) · Toni Morrison (1993) · Kenzaburō Ōe (1994) · Seamus Heaney (1995) · Wisława Szymborska (1996) · Dario Fo (1997) · José Saramago (1998) · Günter Grass (1999) · Gao Xingjian (2000) Complete roster · 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present Persondata Name Walcott, Derek Alternative names Short description Poet Date of birth January 23, 1930 Place of birth Castries, Saint Lucia Date of death Place of death