Derek Walcott (1930-2017)
by William Grimes, The New York Times
Derek Walcott, metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean, the harsh legacy of colonialism, and the complexities of living and writing in two cultural worlds, bringing him a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Mr. Walcott’s expansive universe revolved around a tiny sun, the island of St. Lucia. Its opulent vegetation, blinding white beaches, and tangled multicultural heritage-inspired. [The Caribbean’s most famous literary son, [created] an ambitious body of work that seemingly embraced every poetic form, from the short lyric to the epic.
“I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures; it is a society of physical performance; it is a society of style,” he told The Paris Review in 1985. “I grew up in a place in which if you learned poetry, you shouted it out. Boys would scream it out and perform it and do it and flourish it. If you wanted to approximate that thunder or that power of speech, it couldn’t be done by a little modest voice in which you muttered something to someone else.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/books/derek-walcott-dead-nobel-prize-literature.html
Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight”
Thinking about Identity, History, Making and People-Making.
In Derek Walcott’s long poem “The Schooner Flight,” the Caribbean’s history during and after colonial rule influences how people talk and what they mean. The text is all about Shabine remembering poetically things from the past, which often mirror what Walcott himself went through. The poet uses different kinds of language, like the local way of speaking (patois or Trinidad English Creole), along with a more complex lyrical style, to show how the Caribbean’s history and culture were shaped by colonization and how it affected people.
Shabine heads out to sea when corruption ruins his profitable smuggling business between Trinidad and Venezuela. His life is tangled up in dishonesty, including his relationship with his lover, Maria Concepcion. Feeling trapped, Shabine sees the sea as his only way out. It’s not that he doesn’t care about his wife, kids, lover, or home, but love itself, daily life and respectability on the island are tricky businesses. So, Shabine sets sail, and what happens following forms the poem’s heart.
Presentation:
Written Reflection:
Shabine makes a simple declaration of his hybrid identity that he then complicates:
I’m just a red n—-r who loves the sea,
I had a sound colonial education
I have Dutch, n—-r, and English in me,
and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation. (p. 2, stanza 1)
Explore how Shabine complicates his identity in this quotation. Questions to consider:
What does a “sound colonial education” suggest, and how may this trouble the assertion of the preceding line?
Look at the final two lines of the quotation: What categories of identity are there, and what’s missing?
What is congruent and what is incongruent among these categories, “Dutch, n—-r, and English”?
How does this help us to understand the final line of the quotation?
Questions for Group Work:
Groups of 3 will respond to a specific question below. Each question is drawn from the quote provided, and responding to the question involves a close textual analysis of the quotation. Be sure to consult the Oxford English Dictionary for suggestive definitions and connotations of words that stand out to you. Take 7 minutes to read closely, discuss, and write notes, then take 3 minutes to formulate a brief (5 minutes, max) discussion of your question. Be sure to incorporate your close textual analysis in your presentation.
Question 1:
Walcott brings Shabine’s identity into dialogue with the weight of two significant epochs of Caribbean history, slavery, and independence, that result in a stinging double rejection.
I had no nation now but the imagination.
After the white man, the n—–s didn’t want me
The first chain my hands and apologize, “History”;
the next said I wasn’t black enough for their pride. (p. 4, stanza 3)
Explore the double rejection that Shabine experiences in these lines. Out of this double rejection, Shabine declares that he “had no nation now but the imagination.” Look closely at the meanings of these words, their etymologies, and their connotations: What does this statement mean?
Question 2:
In a justly celebrated passage, Walcott represents the relationship between the events of a distant (and not so distant) history and one’s identity as a confrontation with one’s own ancestry:
I met History once, but he ain’t recognize me,
a parchment Creole, with warts
like an old sea bottle, crawling like a crab
through the holes of shadow cast by the net
of a grille balcony; cream linen, cream hat.
I confront him and shout, “Sir, is Shabine!
They say I’se your grandson. You remember Grandma,
your black cook, at all?” The bitch hawk and spat. (p. 4-5, Stanza 3)
Explore this confrontation with history/ancestry. What does it mean that he describes his grandfather as a “parchment Creole”? What difference does it make that he states, “They say”? How does the description of his grandmother differ from that of his grandfather? What can you infer about the relationship between Shabine’s “grandparents”? What does it mean that history hawked and spat?
Question 3:
In the Middle Passage, Shabine again confronts the doubleness of his own identity and its erasures when he encounters the famous admirals of the past, (p. 6, Stanza 5) “Rodney, Nelson, de Grasse” and then the slave ships:
Next we pass slave ships. Flags of all nations,
our fathers below deck too deep, I suppose,
to hear us shouting. So we stop shouting. Who knows
who his grandfather is, much less his name? (p. 6, stanza 5)
Explore the juxtaposition of these two encounters. How are these two groups–admirals and slaves–different; how are they connected? What does Shabine’s shouting to the slaves suggest or represent? What does it mean that the slaves are “below deck too deep” to hear Shabine and others? “
Exasperated by his unanswered ‘shouting,’ Shabine asks, “Who knows/ who his grandfather is, much less his name?” The second “his” referent is ambiguous–grammatically, to whom may it refer? What does this double referentiality suggest for one’s identity?
Question 4:
In stanza 8, Shabine narrates a fight he had with another crew member:
It had one bitch on board, like he had me mark—
that was the cook, some Vincentian arse
with a skin like a gommier tree, red peeling bark,
and wash-out blue eyes; he wouldn’t give me a ease,
like he feel he was white. Had an exercise book,
this same one here, that I was using to write
my poetry, so one day this man snatch it
from my hand, and start throwing it left and right
to the rest of the crew, bawling out, “Catch it,”
and start mincing me like I was some hen
because of the poems. Some case is for fist,
some case is for tholing pin, some is for knife—
this one was for knife. (p. 7)
What could this fight represent? Look closely at the description of Shabine’s antagonist–what do you notice about him, and what does this suggest? What is the cause of the fight? What are Shabine’s other anxieties at this moment? What does it mean later in the stanza, regarding the injury and its result, “There wasn’t much pain,/ just plenty blood, and Vincie and me best friend”?
Question 5:
In the 10th stanza, “Out of the Depths”, a crisis precipitates for Shabine who begins to descend into madness. The pathetic fallacy of the storm of the sea represents his being engulfed by the contradictory historical forces that seem to constitute him. He prays for deliverance and gains a strength that tells him of his connection to his people and the divine and the power of the divine to relieve oppression. He remembers that in hard pews, “we sang how our race / survive the sea’s maw, our history, our peril, / and now I was ready for whatever death will.”
This is followed by “After the Storm” in which Shabine states,
Though my Flight never pass the incoming tide
of this inland sea beyond the loud reefs
of the final Bahamas, I am satisfied
if my hand gave voice to one people’s grief. (p.11)
Look carefully at these lines: What has Shabine realized? What does “satisfied” mean, and what does it suggest about his journey and its conclusion? What is its conclusion? This journey was aboard the schooner called Flight. What are the meanings of “schooner” and “flight”? What are the historical and contemporary connotations and denotations of these words? What meanings do they create for the poem?
Concluding Thoughts
The Caribbean Sea is not just a body of water but a repository of history, much like individuals carrying the stories of their ancestors within them. Whether one acknowledges this role as a conduit for history matters less than it’s an inherent part of one’s identity.
In the poem, it’s understood that the sea is never empty, especially in the Caribbean, where it’s witnessed the suffering of people transported as slaves. This realization challenges the generalized idea that the sea is a part of Caribbean people’s identity, as many may actually fear it due to its association with past trauma. Running away, whether by sea or land, won’t solve the inner and historical struggles that haunt you.
Shabine’s life revolves around a longing for something elusive that he documents through poetry. Despite the mess he’s made of his life, there’s a suggestion that pursuing something beyond trafficking, domestic politics, or human affection can give life meaning beyond personal failures. However, this pursuit may also hurt those closest to you.