Nobody's nation : reading Derek Walcott

345 Pages·2001·1.252 MB·English

by  Walcott, Derek, Walcott, Derek-, Breslin, Paul

Nobody’s Nation

NOBODY’S NATION
READING DEREK WALCOTT
Paul Breslin
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
PaulBreslinisprofessorofEnglishatNorthwesternUniversity.
HeistheauthorofThePsycho-PoliticalMuse:AmericanPoetrysince
theFifties,publishedbytheUniversityofChicagoPress,andYou
AreHere,acollectionofpoems.
TheUniversityofChicagoPress,Chicago60637
TheUniversityofChicagoPress,Ltd.,London
(cid:1)2001byTheUniversityofChicago
Allrightsreserved.Published2001
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
10090807060504030201 54321
ISBN(cloth):0-226-07426-9
ISBN(paper):0-226-07427-7
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Breslin,Paul.
Nobody’snation:readingDerekWalcott/PaulBreslin.
p. cm.
Includesindex.
ISBN0-226-07426-9(alk.paper)—ISBN0-226-07427-7
(pbk.:alk.paper)
1.Walcott,Derek—Knowledge—History. 2.Literatureand
history—WestIndies—History—20thcentury. 3.Postcolonial-
ism—WestIndies. 4.Decolonizationinliterature. 5.West
Indies—Inliterature. I.Title.
PR9272.9.W3Z545 2001
811(cid:1).54—dc21
2001002128
oThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimum
requirementsoftheAmericanNationalStandardforInformation
Sciences—PermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials,
ANSIZ39.48-1992.
CONTENTS
vii Acknowledgments
ix List of Abbreviations
1 Introduction
11 1 BiographicalSketch
45 2 “FishingtheTwilightforAlternateVoices”:
TheEarlyPoemsandHenriChristophe
83 3 TheYoungPlaywrightinJamaica
102 4 Adam’sAmnesia:TheUsesofMemory
andForgetting
127 5 DeadEndsandGreenBeginnings:
DreamonMonkeyMountain
156 6 AnotherLife:WestIndianExperienceand
theProblemsofNarration
189 7 “PullingintheSeine/oftheDarkSea”:
“TheSchoonerFlight”
215 8 DerekSansTerre:ThePoetryofthe1980s
241 9 EpicAmnesia:HealingandMemoryinOmeros
273 10 Post-HomericDerek:TheBounty
andTiepolo’sHound
287 Epilogue: TowardaJustEvaluationofWalcott
297 Notes
323 Index
v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Firstofall,IwanttothankDerekWalcotthimselffortalking
with me several times during the course of my work, for
putting me in touch with his friends in St. Lucia, and for
permitting me to read and photocopy archival materials at
theUniversity oftheWestIndies inMona,Jamaica andSt.
Augustine, Trinidad. And I am grateful to him and Sigrid
Namafortheirhospitalityduringmy1995triptoSt.Lucia,
whenIinterviewedhimattheirhouse.
Several people—Dunstan St. Omer, John Robert Lee,
andtheWilliamses,Gregor,Deirdre,andtheirdaughterAb-
bie—not only shared their insights into Walcott’s life and
work,buttookmetoimportantplaces.Dunstanshowedme
his church murals at Jacmel, Monchy, and Gros Iˆlet, con-
cluding the day with a stop at Pigeon Island. Gregor took
me the length of the island, with stops and detours along
theway,sharinghisknowledgeashedrove.Abbietookme
toDauphin,noeasytrip.DuringmyfourtripstoSt.Lucia,
I benefited greatly from conversations with MacDonald
Dixon, Hunter Franc¸ois, Kendel Hyppolyte, Arthur Jacobs,
Jane King, John Robert Lee, Richard Montgomery, and
GeorgeOdlum.IalsoamgratefultoRobertDeveauxforhis
assistanceinmyresearchattheSt.LuciaNationalTrustAr-
chives, and to Lady Suzette Simmons for showing me sev-
eralpaintingsbyHaroldSimmonsfromherowncollection.
In Trinidad, my thanks to Kenneth Ramchand for his
vii
viii Acknowledgments
hospitality and informative conversation on Walcott and Trinidadian cul-
ture during my first visit in 1990. Albert Laveaux gave a memorable ac-
countofhisexperiencesintheTrinidadTheatreWorkshop.Oswald“Moti”
Motilal, whom I had met by chance in St. Lucia, took me through the
CaroniregiondowntoSanFernando,withstopsinseveralIndiancommu-
nities alongthe way.Carlton G.Davis of theUniversity ofFlorida helped
megetintouchwithpeople;hiscontactsledmetoMargaretWalcott,who
took time to speak with me. The historian Bridget Brereton gave me in-
sightintoTrinidadianpoliticsandcultureintheperiodofdecolonization,
andGordonRohlehrdiscussedWalcottinrelationtofolkcultureandother
West Indian poets. I am grateful, also, to the staff of the UWI Library’s
WestIndianaCollection,SherrieSingh,ErnestJoseph,andGloriaBaptiste,
for their help in threading the maze of the Walcott Archive during the
limitedtimeofmystayin1993.
In Jamaica, thanks to Patricia Dunn, who helped me find what I
neededinthematerialsatUWI,Mona;toVelmaPollard,foraconversation
at her home; and to Lorna Goodison for an afternoon at her home in
Kingston, talking about Walcott, West Indian literature, and much else
withherandwithArchieHudson-Philips.
I have benefited greatly from an e-mail correspondence with Bruce
King that began in February 1996. He has been generous in sharing the
knowledgegainedfromhisresearchonhisbiography,DerekWalcott:ACa-
ribbeanLife,andinsupplyingtheproofssoIcouldciteitinmystudy.Paula
Burnettwaskindenoughtoe-mailachapterfromherforthcomingbook,
DerekWalcott:Politics andPoetics so that I could take account of it. Thanks
also to Jahan Ramazani for a sympathetic but critically demanding re-
sponse to the first version of the manuscript; to Laurence Breiner for a
critique of two early chapter drafts; and to my editor at the University of
Chicago Press, Alan Thomas, for much good advice along the way. Three
colleaguesatNorthwesternhaveofferedvaluablecritiquesofpartorallof
thebook:ChristineFroula,MaryKinzie,andLawrenceLipking.
Portionsofchapter10appearedinPoetry,vol.178,no.1,as“Tracking
Tiepolo’sHound.”
Ofcoursetherearepersonaldebtsaswell:tomywifeJeanne,forher
loveandpatience,thanks(again!).
ABBREVIATIONS
The following abbreviations are used in the text to refer to
DerekWalcott’sworks.
25P 25Poems
AL AnotherLife
AT TheArkansasTestament
B TheBounty
CP CollectedPoems,1948–1984
DC DrumsandColours
DMMOP DreamonMonkeyMountainandOtherPlays
EY EpitaphfortheYoung
FC “TheFigureofCrusoe:OntheThemeofIsolationinWest
IndianWriting,withaReadingofHisPoems”
FT TheFortunateTraveller
G TheGulf
GN InaGreenNight
HC HenriChristophe:AChronicleinSevenScenes
IFN TheIslandIsFullofNoises
M Midsummer
O Omeros
P Poems(1951)
R&P Remembrance&Pantomime:TwoPlays
SG SeaGrapes
TH Tiepolo’sHound
ix