“Anybody great, we're all interested in the relics. If you found an unfinished Gauguin, you'd still want to see it.”
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Author detail
Derek Alton Walcott is a Caribbean poet, playwright, writer and visual artist. Born in Castries, Saint Lucia[1], he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. His work, which developed independently of the schools of magic realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. He is best known for his epic poem Omeros, an allusive, loose reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey within the Caribbean and beyond to the Africa, New England, the American West, Canada, and London (with frequent reference to the Greek Islands). Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remains active with its Board of Directors. He also founded Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981 with the hope of creating a home for new plays in Boston, Massachusetts. Walcott retired from teaching poetry and drama in the Creative Writing Department at Boston University in 2007. In fall 2009, he will commence a three year distinguished scholar in residence position at University of Alberta. He continues to give readings and lectures throughout the world. He divides his time between his home in the Caribbean and New York City. Source and more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Walcott
Quotes
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“Anybody great, we're all interested in the relics. If you found an unfinished Gauguin, you'd still want to see it.”
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“What makes a poem is the discipline inherent in making a poem: trying to fit feelings in the requisite number of syllables and lines, disciplining one's feelings.”
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“As much as I like teaching and students, it's a kind of rigor, a discipline, that's against my body.”
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“I was writing from a very, very early age. My father used to write. He died early, and my mother was a schoolteacher, so my academic background from childhood is a strong one, a good one.”
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“My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.”
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“Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.”
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“I can't tear up a poem and be a sound bite for you. Why is that so hard for anyone to understand?”
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“Like any art, what is the most imprisoning thing is also the most delivering thing. If an actor knows he only has 12 syllables in a line, the challenge is, 'How can I interpret the meaning a...”
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“I have to live, socially, in an almost unfinished society. Among the almost great, among the almost true, among the almost honest. That allows me to describe the anguish.”
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“I made a vow that I wouldn't be tempted by what could happen to me if I went to Europe. I thought, 'You could be absorbed in it - it's so seductive, you might lose your own search for identi...”
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“I think young writers ought to be heretical.”
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