What a pleasant surprise to learn some four years after his passing about the thoughts we shared. With humility I speak of our Nobel Laureate Sir Derek Walcott. On the other hand, how sad that the few who imagined and still hold on to the notion that all there was to the great man were his universally applauded poems, his prize-winning books, is spoken words and his water colors.
Worthy of mention, too, are those who never actually met in the flesh this extraordinarily gifted Saint Lucian, now forever lost, and know about him only what they had picked up from fellow inebriates, barely literate purveyors of negativism and all things dehumanizing.
There was so much more to Derek Walcott than I ever suspected. I who’ve read, re-read, savored, appreciated and taught others to better understand his wondrous work. The at once uplifting and depressing truth struck home, as I read a recently published conversation in the STAR between Sir Derek and Rick Wayne.
The item was titled: “Derek Walcott Confronts the Question of Identity,” reproduced by the aforementioned publisher. Now, let me confess I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the confrontation hinted at in the headline was universal. I was soon happy to note the confronted “identity” related to our own perception of ourselves. Not how others see us. A subject that has long held my interest. On countless occasions I’d heard talking heads mouthing off on TV about our African heritage, our African ancestors, our African this and our African that. Seldom had I heard them address to any useful degree the other races that had combined to create us. That the blood of Africa runs in our veins does not, to my mind, make us Africans. Neither are we Portuguese, French or Spanish just because the blood of these also keeps our hearts pumping.
How courageous of Derek Walcott to have said, according to Rick Wayne: “Our type of struggle is typical of each race in the Caribbean.”
Obviously, Mr. Walcott was acknowledging in his statement that people of different races combined to create the unique people of the Caribbean—that never mind our cultural differences or the several languages of our region, we are one people. We are the people of the Caribbean. Soup is soup, whether pumpkin- or chicken-based.
I was also taken aback by Mr. Walcott’s observation while talking with Rick Wayne about art: “If we had the creative kind of government that saw the arts as something essential to our way of life, the exultation of the arts could have happened. But it may be too late for that one.”
Too late for that one indeed. I regret that the interlocutor neglected to ask why Mr. Walcott thought it “too late” for an attitudinal change in our government toward the arts, especially since the day’s administration—and its loudest supporters—comprised our leading poets, writers, actors and environmental activists. After all, the referenced era was the radical 1990s. A time of revolution in the region, or something resembling revolution.
I also wondered whether Mr. Walcott may have alluded to Caribbean governments collectively. But as Mr. Wayne likes to say, “that’s for another show.” Hopefully also for another show is the matter of Rat Island, handed over to Derek Walcott in the time of Sir John Compton to be turned into a writers’ retreat, akin to Yaddo, located on a 400-acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Its stated mission is “to nurture the creative process by providing the opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.” Funded by the New York State Council of the Arts, as well as by private and corporate entities, Yaddo was designated a National Historical Landmark in 2013.
Local Walcott detractors of the strain earlier indicated —I would bet they are far more familiar with Yardie than with Yaddo!—love to say the reason the envisaged writers’ colony never got off the ground was because Walcott’s heart was not in it. Somehow, this does not ring plausible. Something Mr. Wayne might wish to clear up in due course?
The following from Derek Walcott, taken from the cited STAR interview, made me blink: “The culture of independence, of nationalism, has some real dangers. Independence brings in aggressiveness of identity that is based basically on a kind of revenge of conduct.” I shudder to think this is what we’ve been experiencing for several years now!
Earlier I expressed regret that Mr. Wayne had not pressed our Nobel winner for literature on the official attitude to the arts. I had a memory lapse. On reflection it occurs to me that Mr. Wayne did ask the question, to which Sir Derek answered, somewhat cryptically, I might add: “I don’t know how you make a people aware of the reality that a good cricketer is less important than a good writer.”
I’m still thinking about that one!
