About Derek Walcott

Born on the island of Saint Lucia on 23^rd January 1930, a former British colony in the West Indies, poet and playwright Derek Walcott was trained as a painter but turned to writing as a young man. At the age of 14 he published his first poem in the local newspaper. About five years later, he had borrowed $200 for his first collection of 25 poems, distributed on the street corners. Walcott’s breakthrough came with the collection “In a Green Night: poems 1948-1960, the book which celebrated the Caribbean and history investigates the scars of colonisation. His collections had included Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), selected poems (2007), and morning, paramin (2016). Walcott won the Noble Prize in literature in 1992.

Since the 1950s Walcott divided the time between Boston, New York, and Saint Lucia. His work resonates with the western canon ad island influences, shifting between Caribbean patois and English.  He is known for his technical control, erudition, and large canvases. His work is conceived on an oceanic scale and one of its fundamental concerns is to give an account of simultaneous unity and divisions created by the ocean and by human dealing with it.

Walcott was also renowned playwright. Walcott won an Obie Award in 1971 for his play Dream on monkey Mountain, which the New Yorker described as “a poem in dramatic form.” Walcott’s plays generally treats aspects of the west Indian experience which dealing with the socio-political implications for post-colonialism and various genres such as fables, allegory, folk, ad morality play.

With his twin brother, he cofounded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1950, while teaching in Boston University, he found the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.  He also taught at Columbia University, Yale University, Rutgers University, and Essex University in England.

work cited: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derek-walcott