{"id":922,"date":"2009-01-11T04:02:48","date_gmt":"2009-01-11T08:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookse.wordpress.com\/?p=922"},"modified":"2017-10-05T17:25:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T21:25:48","slug":"derek-walcotts-omeros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2009\/01\/11\/derek-walcotts-omeros\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Walcott: Omeros<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/span><\/div>

Omeros<\/strong><\/em> <\/span>
\nby Derek Walcott (1990) <\/span>
\nFSG (1992) <\/span>
\n325 pp<\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\"omeros\"<\/p>\n

A<\/span> few years ago I had the good fortune of hearing Mr. Walcott read a portion of his\u00a0book-length poem\u00a0Omeros<\/em>\u00a0in person. He has an incredible voice — soft and\u00a0deep — and the beautiful language really struck me. I bought the book and began to read it, though when it didn’t flow as naturally for me as when Walcott read it I put it down. Then a month or two ago I heard a feature on the BBC World Service Book Club <\/a>about the poem (just a week ago the same program convinced me it’s time I gave Toni Morrison’s Beloved<\/em> another read, even though I didn’t like it the first time). I decided that Omeros<\/em> must be approached again.<\/p>\n

(Incidentally, the painting on the cover was also done by Walcott)<\/p>\n

This is the only modern epic (though Walcott\u00a0says he doesn’t see this poem as “epic”)\u00a0poem I’ve read, so I have no ability to compare it to what else is being done today.\u00a0Walcott himself has written a few others (e.g., Tiepolos Hound <\/em>and Prodigal<\/em>). However, I have read a few of the classics — The Iliad<\/em>, The Odyssey<\/em>, Beowulf<\/em>, The Aeneid<\/em>, and The Divine Comedy<\/em> — and their power stretches over the centuries. Omeros<\/em> pays tribute to all of these poems:\u00a0“Omeros” is Greek for Homer; the poem’s meter is hexameter; he makes great use of compound words, as Beowulf<\/em>; and the structure of the verse is terza rima, as The Divine Comedy<\/em>). Surely\u00a0the tribute is not limited to these quite obvious schemes, but they were the ones that I could point out. This appropriation is entirely appropriate: Walcott is not just being a virtuoso; one of the largest themes in the book is the influence of history, how things that happened once, even if not remembered, still leave their mark. Many of the allusions are done out of the spirit of memory, not mimicry.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0modern-day epic poem is centered on the Island of St. Lucia in the Carribean. Two of the main characters, though there are other threads to the story, are named Achille and Hector. They . . . well, let Walcott introduce them:<\/p>\n

\n

Hector came out from the shade.\u00a0And Achille, the
\nmoment he saw him carrying the cutlass, un homme
\nfou, a madman eaten with envy, replaced the tin<\/span><\/p>\n

he had borrowed from Hector’s canoe neatly back in the prow
\nof Hector’s boat. Then Achille, who had had enough
\nof this madman, wiped and hefted his own blade.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now the villagers emerged from the green shade
\nof the almonds and wax-leaved manchineels, for the face-off
\nthat Hector wanted. Achille walked off and waited<\/span><\/p>\n

at the warm shallow’s edge. Hector strode\u00a0towards him.
\nThe villagers followed, as the surf abated
\nits sound, its fear cowering at the beach’s rim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, far out at sea, in a sparkling shower
\narrows of rain arched from the emerald breakwater
\nof the reef, the shafts travelling with clear power<\/span><\/p>\n

in the sun, and behind them, ranged for the slaughter,
\nstood villagers, shouting, with a sound like the shoal,
\nand hoisting armes to the light. Hector ran, splashing<\/span><\/p>\n

in shallows mixed with the drizzle, towards Achille,
\nhis cutlasss lifted.\u00a0The surf, in anger, gnashing
\nits tail like a foaming dogfight.\u00a0Men can kill<\/span><\/p>\n

their own brothers in rage, but the madman who tore
\nAchille’s undershirt from one shoulder also tore
\nat his heart. The rage that felt against Hector<\/span><\/p>\n

was shame.\u00a0To go crazy for an old bailing tin
\ncrusted with rust! The duel of these fishermen
\nwas over a shadow and its name was Helen.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Later we get: ‘Helen said: “Girl, I pregnant, \/ but I don’t know for who.” Another Homeric echo\u00a0is a blind poet named Seven Seas. And it is during his first introduction that we get the Homeric invocation of the muse, who is Homer himself here.<\/p>\n

\n

Except for one hand he sat as still as marble,
\nwith his egg-white eyes, fingers recounting the past
\nof another sea, measured by the stroking oars.<\/span><\/p>\n

O open this day with the conch’s moan, Omeros,
\nas you did in my boyhood, when I was a noun
\ngently exhaled from the palate of the sunrise.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As you can see, there are many odes to Homer in particular in this poem. However, one should not be under the impression that Walcott is revising one of Homer’s epics, juxtaposing the modern Caribbean with Homer’s Aegean; this is no Ulysses, <\/em>and Walcott is not attempting to redo what Joyce did. On the contrary, alluding to Homer is only one of the ways this book reaches across time to show just how connected, or disconnected, things really are. And St. Lucia — with its wealth of cultural heritage bearing from Europe, Africa, and the Americas, not to mention its own unique history of colonization, slavery, and tourism — is a perfect setting for such a work.<\/p>\n

For example, one part of the book that stood out to me the first time was the history of slavery on the island. The opening lines of the book belong to Philoctete, as he shows off the island to some tourists and eventually, for some extra money, shows them a scar on his leg caused by a rusty anchor. A few pages later, we are taken to see the beginning of the scar:<\/p>\n

\n

“Mais qui ca qui rivait-‘ous. Philoctete?”
\n“Moin blesse.”
\n“But what is wrong wif you, Philoctete?”
\n“I am blest
\nwif this wound, Ma Kilman, qui pas ka querir piece.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which will never heal.”
\n“Well, you musr take it easy.
\nGo home and lie down, give the foot a lickle rest.”
\nPhiloctet, his trouser-legs rolled, stares out to sea<\/span><\/p>\n

from the worn rumshop window. The itch in the sore
\ntingles like the tendrils of the anemone,
\nand the ouffed blister of Portuguese man-o’-war.<\/span><\/p>\n

He believed the swelling came from the chained ankles
\nof his grandfathers. Or else why was there no cure?
\nThat the cross he carried was not only the anchor’s<\/span><\/p>\n

but that of his race, for a village black and poor
\nas the pigs that rooted in its burning garbage,
\nthen were hooked on the anchors of the abattoir.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now, Philoctete has no memory of slavery. Those belong to his ancestors. What he can see is more the resonance, or the signal, of slavery. Incidentally, we know from the first page that the wound is eventually cured, but this is no sentimental journey, giving humans more credit than they deserve.<\/p>\n

Moving away from direct Homeric reference, there is also Major Plunkett and his wife Maud. We first meet him sipping a Guinness, uncomfortable with his middle-class Britishness.\u00a0This is almost sans Homer, but Major Plunkett is looking for a son. And like other characters in the book, Plunkett is wounded.\u00a0It is here that Walcott inserts himself into the work for the first time:<\/p>\n

\n

This wound I have stitched into Plunkett’s character.
\nHe has to be wounded, affliction is one theme
\nof this work, this fiction, since every “I” is a<\/span><\/p>\n

fiction finally. Phantom narrator, resume:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Getting through this book is no easy endeavor. The layers of meaning are in place for years and years of dedicated scholarship, something most of us are not in a position to take on. However, there is still much to be gleaned from this book on a first read, and it is an enjoyable experience. In fact my only major problem with it — and it’s a problem I have when I read poetry in general — is that often I’m distracted by the beauty of the language and don’t pay attention to what it is actually saying. I get sound but no meaning.\u00a0Many times I read a paragraph, or an entire section, and couldn’t tell someone next to me what it was about. This is by no means a failing of the book. It’s just another layer of skill to be enjoyed in a book worth the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>