The Courier

Walcott published his first poem at the age of 14. The wrongs of 400 years of colonial rule in the Caribbean yet the celebration of the hybridisation of its cultures with a search for personal identity, are central themes in his work; a wealth of poetry and over 20 plays including, Henri Christophe (1950), Ti Jean and his Brothers (1958) and Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967). The poem, North and South (1981) puts over the quest for identity:

 “a colonial upstart at the end of the empire, a single, homeless, circling satellite.”

He was educated in St. Mary’s College, Castries, St. Lucia and studied at the University College of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica and also went to theatre school in New York (1958-1959). His early career was in teaching in the Caribbean, also as a journalist for Public Opinion in Jamaica and feature writer and drama critic for the Trinidad Guardian. His passion for the theatre was also precocious. Aged just 20, he set up the St. Lucia Arts Guild. In 1966, he formed the Trinidad Theatre Workshop.      

Painter

Following in the shoes of his amateur watercolourist father, he is now spending more time painting, capturing the essence of St. Lucia’s overwhelming natural beauty: “I was there two days ago and it was a terrific day… staggering,” he tells us when we meet in Leuven. 

It’s in St.Lucia during time out from literary circuit that life comes close to any sort of routine: “After breakfast and doing some work, I go down for a mid-morning swim and back for lunch and a nap. I never work late at night though sometimes late afternoons when I have theatre rehearsals.” The exhilaration of swimming is captured in one of his painting simply entitled, The Swimmer. It depicts a lone man wading into the sea as the waves rush in to batter his body. He likes the reality of a landscape or portrait rather than abstract art.
 
Having spent several years teaching creative writing at Boston University, he still has a base in nearby New York but now spends more time in St.Lucia at his home at the islands’northern tip, the Cap, where there are views of the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.

Rivière Dorée

He breaks off from our chat to suggest we look out of the window onto Leuven’s old square. The university dates back to 1425. Surprisingly perhaps, he doesn’t say anything about the magnificently rebuilt gabled buildings. At a guess, he’s probably more inspired by the sensory natural pleasures of St. Lucia and the Caribbean rather than the rows of café society below. He goes on to evoke one of his favourite spots in St. Lucia, Rivière Dorée, near Choiseul in the south, a tucked away fishing cove bathed in a golden light in the evening.

“I have a new book of poems which will come out next year. Generally it’s about what happens to you personally as a writer what goes on with our life; what our losses and gains are.” His voice is also melodious and draws you in. Interacting with Mr Walcott, there’s almost a feeling that you are in a play. At any moment, he might drop a descriptive gem.

Coming back to St. Lucia. What’s so special about the island where he was born? “The St. Lucian topography, the sudden conical mountains and the sea. To have that everyday in your life is a blessing.” He is clearly worried, however, about the effects of tourism on his island and the wider Caribbean:
“When the place is small, when the race is different and when you have to be delicate about the history of a place, you can have a big threat. Right now, I have someone who is trying to build a set of condos next to my house. It’s been brought to my doorstep as it will be brought to many other peoples’ doorsteps.”

He continues: “There are big hotels going up and the emphasis is smile and be happy, be courteous but this is dangerous and I’m writing about that.” Tourism is not a crime, he says, but he feels that developers and governments should give more to developing the Caribbean’s cultural wealth.

“What you can do is to take the same industry and make people pay for what they are doing. For example, get a theatre built, a museum and a few scholarships. They are afraid to tax the tourist investor but if you don’t do that you have a transient economy.”

“My beach”

He continues: “I used to go down to ‘my beach’ (Rodney Bay). You know all Caribbean people have their own beach. Well, there’s a hotel there now. I feel displaced by the hotel which is a stupid feeling because I can swim anywhere else but I just feel that it belonged to me. I don’t think a hotel is a good enough compensation for what I have lost. This is a kind a metaphor for everything.in the Caribbean.You cannot have a country with a shed for a theatre. I am very disappointed in the conventionality of Caribbean governments.”

We come back to his immediate plans: “I am working on screen plays at the moment. I am going to make a couple of movies - I hope. He says one is a screenplay of Ti-Jean, the other a domestic play set in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. “Ti-Jean is a fable about a boy and his two brothers set in Soufriere, St. Lucia. One brother is physically strong. The other one thinks he’s an intellectual, a big lawyer who questions everything. The moral is look out for the devil,” says Walcott. 

This autumn he’ll be in London to direct the play of Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, The Burial of Thebes, at the Globe Theatre. He clearly enjoys the company and contact with others that theatre brings.  

The following evening, we meet up again at the Passa Porta, a literary spot in downtown Brussels. After a reading from Omeros, he takes questions from a well-informed audience on Caribbean identity, the use of Creole in literature… He clearly relishes the public plaudits for his work but at one point, a look of vulnerability at its relentless dissection that an author of his stature is forced to submit to, comes across his face. He’s probably looking forward to the routine of those morning swims in the source of his inspiration, St. Lucia.

* The Sevottefonds Herman was founded in 2004 as a tribute to the deceased professor of English literature, Herman Servotte to promote the study of English literature.

** The journalist met the poet in Leuven on 15 May 2008.

Websites:
www.fondshermanservotte.be
www.passaporta.be