For Cate – 'On the Cathedral Steps' Derek Walcott

[imaginary friend]

On The Cathedral Steps

On the cathedral steps sprinkled by the bells' benediction
Like water that blissfully stained the scorching street,
You were not among the small crowd in the sun,
So many black against the Sicilian heat.
I never entered the shaded church with its pews
facing the tortured alter, but I hoped to find you:
Oh I did, halfheartedly, but by now it was no use.
The bells meant nothing or the swallows they lifted;
still I felt you were ahead and I was right behind you,
and that you would stop on your shadow and turn your head,
and there in Sicily turn into salt, into fiction.
I don't know the cathedral's name. It's in Syracuse.
I bought a paper in a language I cannot read.
There was nothing in the paper about this. It wasn't news.

DEREK WALCOTT


Cate, this echoed the bells in your poem on the members poetry section, thought you (and others) might enjoy it.

I was thinking about some of LC's poetry, and Walcott's poem articulated a certain context, for me; the intertwining of god with creative muse – how in searching for one, sometimes the other is discovered.

Derek Walcott is a poet from the Caribbean. He won the Nobel prize for his poetry in 1992.

[Cate]

Hello Imaginary,

You were quite right I did enjoy this!
Wow this man knows how to toss around an image. I love how he pulls you inside the poem so that you are experiencing the moment and then pulls you out again so that you are outside looking in at it (time change - sorry if that didn't make sense)

Thank you for introducing me to this poet I.F., I"m looking forward to reading more of his work

[Steven]

This is a Leonard Cohen-like poem by Walcott. The depth and use of
biblical reference with the "turn into salt" (as in the biblical account of
Lot's wife and the result of her turning her head) are effective and in
the same tradition. Leonard Cohen could transform this poem into song.
For whatever reason, something about its rhythm vaguely brings to mind "One
Of Us Cannot Be Wrong." Needless to say, I like this poem.

[imaginary friend]

Hi Steven,

Glad you liked the poem. I agree, it is Leonard-like. Below is a link to more of Derek Walcott's poems if anyone's interested.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/de ... cott/poems

I'm still going through them, but I particularly like Dark August so far...

[Steven]

Hi Imaginary Friend,

Thanks for both the posting and the link. I appreciate your presence in this forum.

[Sophia]

And they both have a strong connection with Greek spirit:

Sea Grapes
by Derek Walcott


That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands,
a schooner beating up the Caribbean

for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband's

longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is
like the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name
in every gull's outcry.

This brings nobody peace. The ancient war
between obsession and responsibility
will never finish and has been the same

for the sea-wanderer or the one on shore
now wriggling on his sandals to walk home,
since Troy sighed its last flame,

and the blind giant's boulder heaved the trough
from whose groundswell the great hexameters come
to the conclusions of exhausted surf.

The classics can console. But not enough.



And chapters XLIV-XLVII from his epic poem "Omeros" here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive ... ?id=177933

Sophia

[imaginary friend]

And they both have a strong connection with Greek spirit:

Thanks for illustrating your point with Sea Grapes Sophia. (Are there Sea Grape trees in the Med, BTW? I always thought the sour little devils were native to the Caribbean only.)

...And thanks for the link to Omeros – quite a marathon – I'll save that for the weekend, when I can go from beginning to end without distraction.

[Sophia]

Are there Sea Grape trees in the Med, BTW? I always thought the sour little devils were native to the Caribbean only.

Yes,I think you are right, just sea and grapes in the Mediterranean:-)

Sophia

[Red Poppy]

Guys, I think to describe Derek Walcott's work as "Leonard Cohen like" does neither poet any service.
Walcott very much has his own voice - distinctive, drawn from a totally different cultural experience and filled with something that is uniquely Walcott.
It's a wonderful poem - part of a wondeful body of work.
Thank you for posting it.

[Steven]

Hi Red Poppy,

I meant the description as a compliment to both and the comparison came from
noticing a level of excellence, similarity of tone, etc. that this particular poem
has with some L.C. works. I'm aware of Walcott's uniqueness. It wasn't to
negate that but to include this poem (and, by extension, Walcott) within the "league" of other ones known by and considered to be of excellence by most around here. But, your point is well taken. -- Comparisons can be a double-edged sword. Walcott appears in a book/CD anthology that I recently purchased. I'm disappointed that his voice doesn't appear on the CD with other "greats," (reading some of their works) but am glad that some of his poetry and a bit of his interesting biography is included in the book.

[Red Poppy]

Point taken Steven.
Is the collection you have the Bloodaxe DVD/Book collection?
Hey, isn't it great to be alive and discussing poetry!
Keep the faith.

[Steven]

Hi Red Poppy,

Yes, it is great to be alive and discussing poetry. I, will say, though, that I'm not
all that knowledgeable about it. It wasn't till the last couple of years, that I
started reading/writing poetry to any real extent. But, I'm enthusiastic and
am glad to have you and others to share the interest with. The book/CD
collection is: "The Great Modern Poets." The CD includes: Yeats, Frost,
Wallace Stevens, W.C. Williams, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings,
Langston Hughes, John Betjeman, Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Dylaln Thomas,
Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, Kamau Brathwaite, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath.
There are said to be over 150 poems in the book. It was very inexpensive at
an outlet store of a major U.S. bookseller for $9.99 U.S. Haven't heard
all the poems yet.

[iveta]

thanks for derek
i have liked him since he made capeman with paul simon

[imaginary friend]

No, thank you Iveta, for Capeman info. I thought Paul Simon wrote the libretto himself – I didn't know it was Derek Walcott's work! Capeman music was available on CD for a time (late 1990's) I think... I'll have to see if it's still around.

Thanks again!

[iveta]

oh sorry sorry
but if LC is still unique with Lorca ,should't forgive Paul a little hepl from his nobel prize winning friend...