Derek Walcott: Homecoming: Anse La Raye

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

Homecoming: Anse La Raye

 

The Gulf and Other Poems, London: J. Cape, 1969

127-129

Allusion to Classical figure Biblical language elides the images of the poet, Odysseus and Christ (e.g. ‘Suffer them to come,/ entering your needle’s eye’). In Walcott’s poetry Christian and Classical frequently combine to represent colonial influences.

Relationship to Classical text For Walcott and his fellow ‘Afro-Greek’ schoolmates the ‘shades’ of classical literature are ‘borrowed ancestors’. The Poet’s return to his home village is depicted as a failed Odyssean nostos.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts Biblical language elides the images of the poet, Odysseus and Christ (e.g. ‘Suffer them to come,/ entering your needle’s eye’). In Walcott’s poetry Christian and Classical frequently combine to represent colonial influences.

Further Comment Putrifying detritus on the shoreline echoes decaying emblems of Homeric epic (‘salt-rusted swords’, seacrab’s brittle helmets’, etc.).