It was certainly an ambitious task to write 'Omeros' by Derek Walcott as it re-invented a Greek epic using Dante's favoured verse structure the
terza rima. Following the lives of St. Lucia fishermen, Achille and Philoctete, this 300 page poem is an extended meditation on place, how we place ourselves in society (and the world at large) and how we are defined by what we do.
Walcott was born on St. Lucia so after his time living in America this is his poetic homecoming. It's clear that he loves the island as his descriptions of it are so vivid and extraordinarily rendered. His sense of the people and the politics are exquisite and give a real insight into how life is lived to someone who will never go there.
It could be viewed as something of an obligation to read such a thing and it did take me a good chunk of it for me to get into it. But once there you find that there is an ease to such writing though not a casualness as Walcott writes each life with care.
There is a tenderness at play but not a softness; it is as tough as a gem, always with a shining of the special moments in the lives of his characters as they take on their roles. The further you get into it the more enticing it is following deeper and deeper into their lives and enhancing it with a unique lyricalness, like starlings flying as a crowd over a beach.
Every now and then there is a phrase, a thought, an image that strikes you with plausibility and beauty. Take these lines: 'Art is immortal and weighs heavily on us/ And museums leave us with at loss for words'. Here there is a sense that art, once created, always exists in the world and never dies.
The meaning is two-fold of cultural heritage. One is grateful for having inherited a rich world that one may draw from and expand into new directions, the other is sorry for having so much baggage to hold. This could be taken from Walcott's own life as a product of the British education system that he was raised under but, in an interview, he remarks that he was glad to have that education and so colonialism for him was fairly benign, even enriching.
There is also a sense of magnificence to art as this thing that can leave you speechless, this high and mighty history of the sublime that you become awe of. And Walcott was certainly in awe of art.
Definitely a book that grew on me as it developed, seduced by it's exotic mysteriousness of sunshine, fish and colourful characters ripe for a re-read. For a poem of it's size it seems seamless, a polished artefact found washed up on the shore, a beautiful mystery. So going back over it to unpick it and see how it was made will be a satisfying experience and all the more an excuse for living in that world of St. Lucia.
