A Tribute to Derek Walcott

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StrongBack Productions in partnership with The British Library.
Drums and Colours
7th July and 21st September 2018.
The Knowledge Centre, British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1

Curated with Maria Cristina Fumagalli, professor of Literature at Essex University and poet, playwright, novelist, librettist and critic Glyn Maxwell.

StrongBack paid tribute to Nobel Laureate, poet, painter and playwright Derek Walcott, with two events within the British Library’s Windrush exhibition. The first event presented in July 2018 was a rehearsed reading of his epic play Drums and Colours directed by Burt Caesar.

Never before performed in the UK, the play was commissioned from the 27-year old playwright in celebration of the establishment of the West Indian Federation in 1958. The drama, a re-enactment of four hundred and fifty years of Caribbean History is told through ‘the lives of four litigious men’, Christopher Columbus, Walter Raleigh, Toussaint L’Ouverture and George William Gordon, revealing biographical scenes of farce and tragedy, triumph and defeat, glory and death. Originally written for 58 characters, the cast of the reading included Martina Laird, Akiya Henry, Aurora Burghart, Marina Bye, Joseph Marcell, Rez Kempton, Ben Onwukwe, Matthew Truesmith, Tobi Bamtefa, Emily Aboud and composer/musician James Lascelles.

The reading was followed by a talk on The Subtle Influences present in in Drums and Colours, presented by Professor Maria Cristina Fumagalli, a brief overview of Caribbean writing presented by poet and artistic director of Babel Festival of literary translation Vanni Bianconi and a conversation on the impact of the play between Burt Caesar, Professor Fumagalli, Martina Laird, Joseph Marcell and Vanni Bianconi

Monsieur Seven Seas
In September, again at the Knowledge Centre, Glyn Maxwell gathered poets, writers, former students and friends of old for an evening of readings from Walcott’s plays, Ti-Jean and his Brothers, O Starry Starry Night, Moonchild and The Odyssey and selected poems by Walcott, Melissa Green, WH. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Adam Zagajewski and Walter De La Mare. Contributing to the evening’s intimacy were Adam Zagajewski, Matteo Campagnoli, Wendell Manwarren, Martina Laird, Stephanos Papadopoulos, Maria Cristina Fumagalli and Caryl Phillips. The readings and anecdotes vividly evoked the spirit of Derek Walcott and the bonds of friendship that he fostered and nurtured.

For StrongBack Productions:
Dominique Le Gendre ( Artistic Director), Curator, Project Manager.
Sarala Estruch Production Assistant
Anna Leader Photography
Sophie Meyer, Emily Aboud Filming

Production supported by:
The British Library, The Eccles Centre for American Studies, The High Commission for St. Lucia, Peter Doig, Ovalhouse, donors who wish to remain anonymous, Sigrid Nama and The Walcott Estate.

Read Adam Zagajewski’s essay Derek Walcott at the British Library.
Derek Walcott in the British Library
In German there is a saying, which Jerzy Stempowski eagerly cited: “die Toten reiten schnell.” The dead ride swiftly away from us. But the living, while they can, try to slow down this departure. Derek Walcott, the great poet and dramatist, someone endowed not only with poetic genius, but also with great charm and a splendid sense of humour, went through life surrounded by friends and disciples.

Some of them met together in London, in September of this year, in order to slow down, to arrest, the departure from us of the poet, who died in March, 2017. The initiator and organiser of this small gathering was Dominique Le Gendre, a composer born in the Caribbean. The evening bore the title “Monsieur Seven Seas,” which alluded to one of the central characters in Walcott’s epic poem Omeros. Let us recall that the author of this poem was born on the island of Saint Lucia, lying between Martinique and Barbados, and never disowned his origins; on the contrary—the gleaming sea, seagulls suspended in slow flight, and beaches bearing strange and gorgeous names, encrust his poems. But dramatic things also found their place within these verses. Wonder does not deny suffering and the awareness of the pain of others.

Derek Walcott combined faithfulness to his native province with devotion to a universal tradition. He had the choice, either to regard himself as a victim of British colonialism and, for this reason, to reject the exemplars of great English poetry, or else—not forgetting what is dark and unjust—to admire the poets of Albion and to learn from them. After all, he wrote in their language, their metaphors and images were his milieu. Yet, he was not born a victim; he had in himself, no doubt from childhood, pride and faith in his vocation—hence, he chose the second way. He was attacked for this by writers from the former colonies, authors of an ideological orientation, more concerned with their own identities than with poetry and the world.

But they were not the ones who travelled to London, on the 21st of September. In London there appeared friends and disciples of the poet; among them were Walcott’s former students, who like to recall stories and anecdotes from years past. From the Caribbean islands, arrived Walcott’s favourite actors, Martina Laird and Wendell Manwarren, thanks to whom, in the auditorium of the British Library (since that is where the meeting was held), there gleamed the magic of theatre—namely, that against which poets, as a rule, defend themselves, championing a calm, unaffected recitation of poems. Yet, when an unexpected flame of theatrical passion surprises them, they are occasionally enraptured.

The master of ceremonies was the British poet Glyn Maxwell, once a student of Derek Walcott’s at Boston University.

Some former students of Walcott’s announced to the writer of these words that he is, at present, the only living poet whose works their master mentioned during classes. I was instructed to read the English translation of “To Go to Lvov” (in Renata Gorczyńska’s version), which I obediently did.

The evening was a tribute to the poet and dramatist, but also to the master, professor and humanist. Derek Walcott loved poetry (we cannot know this; but, it seems that he loved only his mother more—a teacher, who led him into the regions of a great heresy, namely world literature) and he had his favourite poems, both short and long. It seems that precisely this was the essence of his university teaching: the transmission to students of a love for a dozen or so poems, the talismans of professor Walcott. The professor no doubt assumed that later, from these dozen or so poems, would be born an undying passion for the whole of poetry. His students, his former students, have a perfect memory—they included in the programme a few works that belonged to Walcott’s canon. Among them were found the following poems: W. H. Auden’s “Deftly, Admiral, Cast Your Fly,” Louis MacNeice’s “The Sunlight on the Garden” and Walter de la Mare’s “Fare Well.” All three poems speak of the things of human life, beyond politics, beyond history.

If written texts—like this report from the London event—had their own theatrical dynamic (and angelology, and distance—as Gałczyński would say), a moment of silence would now transpire, in order that those poems might calmly resound. Also, of course, the poems of Walcott himself, read by the poets and actors present at the British Library. At the end was recited Walcott’s beautiful long poem, “The Light of the World.”

I have not yet enumerated the surnames of the two former students present in London: one was Matteo Campagnoli, an Italian; the second was Stephanos Papadopoulos, from Greece. They belonged to the cluster of apostles surrounding Walcott, who, since finishing their studies and becoming independent, took advantage of every occasion to meet with their master. On his birthday, on the 23rd of January, they made a pilgrimage to meet him in the Caribbean; but they also appeared in New York, in Milan. Yet, it is worth underlining that in contrast, for instance, to the rather gloomy cult surrounding the German poet Stefan George (1868-1933)—who consciously and not without sophistic political calculations, constructed around himself a “circle” (der Kreis) of youths who had to fulfil two conditions: being superbly educated but also beautiful and tall young men—Walcott’s apostles shared with their master not only a passion for poetry, but also a sense of humour and a poetic carefreeness. For, it is not hard to notice that poets—even those whose creativity takes on a tragic hue— have, on the whole, an excellent sense of humour. But not the pompous Stefan George. His students—in their circle jokes, at least, were lacking—went out into the world; many of them faithfully served Hitler, while some belonged among the critics of Nazism. One of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, tried, as we know unsuccessfully, to kill the tyrant.

There is no “Walcott Circle”; there is only a loose archipelago of friends. And, there is no need to fear that any of his students might enlist themselves in the service of a despot. As far as I know, the friends of Walcott do not want to kill anyone; they want to remember youthful moments spent with the great poet, and to read good poems. In order that poetry not die, that it not sink beneath the ocean of mediocrity.

Adam Zagajewski.