View source for Derek Walcott

{{short description|Saint Lucian poet and playwright (1930–2017)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| honorific_prefix = [[The Honourable]]
| name             = Sir Derek Walcott
| honorific_suffix = [[Order of Saint Lucia|KCSL]] [[Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire|OBE]] [[Order of Merit (Jamaica)|OM]] [[Order of the Caribbean Community|OCC]]
| image            = Derek Walcott.jpg
| caption          = Walcott at an honorary dinner in [[Amsterdam]], 20 May 2008
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_name       = Derek Alton Walcott
| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=y|1930|1|23}}
| birth_place      = [[Castries]], [[Colony of Saint Lucia]], [[British Windward Islands]], British Empire
| death_date       = {{death date and age |df=y|2017|3|17 |1930|1|23 }}
| death_place      = Cap Estate, [[Gros-Islet]], Saint Lucia
| occupation       = Poet, playwright, professor
| period           = 
| genre            = Poetry and plays
| subject          = 
| movement         = [[Postcolonial literature|Postcolonialism]]
| notableworks     = ''[[Dream on Monkey Mountain]]'' (1967), ''[[Omeros]]'' (1990), ''White Egrets'' (2007)
| spouse           = <!-- Notable only see [[:WP:Notable]] -->
| children         = 3
| relatives        = 
| awards           = {{awards|[[Nobel Prize in Literature]]|1992}} {{awards|[[T. S. Eliot Prize]]|2010}}
| signature        = Derek Walcott signature.svg
| website          = 
}}
'''Sir Derek Alton Walcott''' {{post-nominals|list=[[Order of Saint Lucia|KCSL]]}} {{postnominals|country=UK|OBE}} [[Order of Merit (Jamaica)|<small>OM</small>]] {{post-nominals|list=[[Order of the Caribbean Community|OCC]]}} (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a [[Saint Lucia]]n poet and playwright. 

He received the [[1992 Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-bio.html|title=Derek Walcott – Biographical|publisher=Nobel Foundation|year=1992|access-date=18 March 2017|archive-date=17 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617120042/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-bio.html|url-status=live}}</ref> His works include the [[Homeric]] [[Epic poetry|epic poem]] ''[[Omeros]]'' (1990), which many critics view "as Walcott's major achievement."<ref name=pf>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/derek-walcott|title=Derek Walcott 1930–2017|publisher=[[Poetry Foundation]]|location=Chicago, IL|access-date=18 March 2017|archive-date=2 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402003921/http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/derek-walcott|url-status=live}}</ref> In addition to winning the Nobel Prize, Walcott received many literary awards over the course of his career, including an [[Obie Award]] in 1971 for his play ''[[Dream on Monkey Mountain]]'', a [[MacArthur Foundation]] "genius" award, a [[Royal Society of Literature]] Award, the [[Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry|Queen's Medal for Poetry]], the inaugural [[OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature]],<ref name=bocas>[http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Derek_Walcott_wins_OCM_Bocas_Prize-121040233.html "Derek Walcott wins OCM Bocas Prize"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315153758/http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Derek_Walcott_wins_OCM_Bocas_Prize-121040233.html |date=15 March 2016 }}, ''Trinidad Express Newspapers'', 30 April 2011.</ref> the 2010 [[T. S. Eliot Prize]] for his book of poetry ''White Egrets''<ref Name="Eliot">Charlotte Higgins, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/24/ts-eliot-prize-derek-walcott "TS Eliot prize goes to Derek Walcott for 'moving and technically flawless' work".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612134545/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/24/ts-eliot-prize-derek-walcott |date=12 June 2023 }} ''The Guardian'', 24 January 2011.</ref> and the [[Griffin Poetry Prize|Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry]] Lifetime Recognition Award in 2015.

==Early life and childhood==
Walcott was born and raised in [[Castries]], [[Saint Lucia]], in the [[West Indies]], the son of Alix (Maarlin) and Warwick Walcott.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Mayer |first=Jane |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/02/09/the-islander |title=The Islander |magazine=The New Yorker |date=9 February 2004 |access-date=20 March 2017 |archive-date=9 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190109011427/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/02/09/the-islander |url-status=live }}</ref> He had a twin brother, the playwright [[Roderick Walcott]], and a sister, Pamela Walcott. His family is of English, Dutch and African descent, reflecting the complex colonial history of the island that he explores in his poetry. His mother, a teacher, loved the arts and often recited poetry around the house.<ref Name="Paris Review">[[Edward Hirsch]], [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2719/the-art-of-poetry-no-37-derek-walcott "Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120915082637/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2719/the-art-of-poetry-no-37-derek-walcott |date=15 September 2012 }}, ''[[The Paris Review]]'', Issue 101, Winter 1986.</ref> His father was a [[civil servant]] and a talented painter, who died when Walcott and his brother were one year old. <ref name="Caribbean Beat 1993">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-5/derek-walcotts-nobel-works|title=Derek Walcott's Nobel Works|first= Skye|last=Hernandez|author2=Jeremy Taylor|author3=Raoul Pantin|author4=Pat Ismond|magazine=[[Caribbean Beat]]|issue=5|date=Spring 1993|access-date=1 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="englishverse.com">{{cite web|url=https://englishverse.com/poets/walcott_derek|title=Sir Derek Walcott 1930–2017|website=englishverse.com|access-date=2 November 2025}}</ref>

The young Walcott attended a Methodist elementary school where his mother was head teacher, and she provided her children with an environment where their talents could be nurtured.<ref name="Caribbean Beat 1993" /> Walcott's family was part of a minority [[Methodist]] community. They felt overshadowed by the dominant Catholic culture of the island established during French colonial rule. Walcott's secondary school was the Catholic [[Saint Mary's College (Saint Lucia)|St. Mary's College]].<ref name=Grimes>{{cite news|last1=Grimes|first1=William|title=Derek Walcott, Poet and Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/books/derek-walcott-dead-nobel-prize-literature.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/books/derek-walcott-dead-nobel-prize-literature.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited|access-date=18 March 2017|newspaper=The New York Times|date=17 March 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

As a young man, he trained as a painter, mentored by [[Harold Simmons (folklorist)|Harold Simmons]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stluciafolk.org/folkPersonalities/view/18|title=Harold Simmons|publisher=Folk Research Centre|location=St Lucia|access-date=23 August 2015|archive-date=28 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428003956/http://www.stluciafolk.org/folkPersonalities/view/18|url-status=live}}</ref> whose life as a professional artist provided an inspiring example for him. Walcott greatly admired [[Cézanne]] and [[Giorgione]] and sought to learn from them.<ref name="Paris Review" /> Walcott's painting was later exhibited at the [[Anita Shapolsky Gallery]] in New York City, along with the art of other writers, in a 2007 exhibition named ''The Writer's Brush: Paintings and Drawing by Writers''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-writers-brush/|title=The Writer's Brush|date=16 December 2007|work=CBS News|access-date=21 March 2015|archive-date=22 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422121410/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-writers-brush/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.anitashapolskygallery.com/past_exhibits_writers.html|title=The Writer's Brush; September 11 – October 27, 2007|work=Anita Shapolsky Gallery|location=New York City|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150201060315/http://www.anitashapolskygallery.com/past_exhibits_writers.html|archive-date=1 February 2015}}</ref>

He studied as a writer, becoming "an elated, exuberant poet madly in love with English" and strongly influenced by modernist poets such as [[T. S. Eliot]] and [[Ezra Pound]].<ref name=pf/> Walcott had an early sense of a vocation as a writer. In the poem "Midsummer" (1984), he wrote:

<blockquote><poem>
Forty years gone, in my island childhood, I felt that 
the gift of poetry had made me one of the chosen, 
that all experience was kindling to the fire of the Muse.<ref name="Paris Review" /></poem></blockquote>

At 14, Walcott published his first poem, a [[John Milton|Miltonic]], religious poem, in the newspaper ''The Voice of St Lucia''. An English Catholic priest condemned the Methodist-inspired poem as blasphemous in a response printed in the newspaper.<ref name="Paris Review" /> By the age of 19, Walcott had self-published his first two collections with the aid of his mother, who paid for the printing: ''25 Poems'' (1948) and ''Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos'' (1949). He sold copies to his friends and covered the costs.<ref Name="Academy">{{cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220|title=Derek Walcott|website=poets.org|publisher=Academy of American Poets|date=4 February 2014|access-date=29 December 2010|archive-date=10 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110310130930/http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220|url-status=live}}</ref> 

He later commented:

<blockquote>I went to my mother and said, "I'd like to publish a book of poems, and I think it's going to cost me two hundred dollars." She was just a seamstress and a schoolteacher, and I remember her being very upset because she wanted to do it. Somehow she got it—a lot of money for a woman to have found on her salary. She gave it to me, and I sent off to [[Trinidad]] and had the book printed. When the books came back I would sell them to friends. I made the money back.<ref name="Paris Review" /></blockquote>

The influential Barbadian poet [[Frank Collymore]] critically supported Walcott's early work.<ref name="Paris Review" />

After attending high school at Saint Mary's College, Walcott received a scholarship to study at the [[University College of the West Indies]] in [[Kingston, Jamaica]].<ref Name="British Council">{{cite web|url=http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=authC2D9C28A0a4dc1BE88LsX2F7F9A1|title=Derek Walcott – British Council Literature|author=British Council|work=contemporarywriters.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110104042528/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=authC2D9C28A0a4dc1BE88LsX2F7F9A1|archive-date=4 January 2011}}</ref><ref name="JamaicaScholarship">{{cite web | last=Walcott | first=Derek | title=Derek Walcott | website=The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation | url=https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poets/derek-walcott | access-date=2025-09-07}}</ref>

==Career ==
[[File:Derek Walcott, VIII Festival Internacional.jpg|thumb|Walcott at VIII Festival Internacional, 1992]]
[[File:Derek-Walcott-names.ogg|thumb|Derek Walcott reciting his poem "names"]]
After graduation, Walcott moved to [[Trinidad]] in 1953, where he became a critic, teacher and journalist.<ref Name="British Council"/> He founded the [[Trinidad Theatre Workshop]] in 1959 and remained active with its board of directors.<ref Name="Academy"/><ref name=als>{{cite magazine|last1=Als|first1=Hilton|author-link=Hilton Als|title=Derek Walcott – a mighty poet has fallen|url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/derek-walcott-a-mighty-poet-has-died|access-date=18 March 2017|magazine=The New Yorker|date=17 March 2017|archive-date=14 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114034425/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/derek-walcott-a-mighty-poet-has-died|url-status=live}}</ref>

Exploring the Caribbean and its history in a colonialist and post-colonialist context, his collection ''In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960'' (1962) attracted international attention.<ref Name=pf/> His play ''[[Dream on Monkey Mountain]]'' (1970) was produced on NBC-TV in the United States the year it was published. Makak is the protagonist in this play; and "Makak"s condition represents the condition of the colonized natives under the oppressive forces of the powerful colonizers".<ref>Islam, Md. Manirul (April 2019). "Derek Walcott's ''Dream on Monkey Mountain'': A Complicated Presentation of Postcolonial Condition of the West Indians". ''New Academia''. 8(2).</ref> In 1971, it was produced by the [[Negro Ensemble Company]] off-Broadway in New York City; it won an [[Obie Award]] that year for "Best Foreign Play".<ref>[http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0153558.html Obie Award Listing: ''Dream on Monkey Mountain''], InfoPlease. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160403213937/http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0153558.html |date=3 April 2016 }}.</ref> In the United Kingdom's [[1972 New Year Honours]], Walcott was awarded an [[Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire|OBE]] for services to literature and drama in St. Lucia.<ref>United Kingdom list: {{London Gazette |issue=45554 |date=31 December 1971 |page=19|supp=y}}</ref><ref name="Oxford University">{{cite web |url=http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/university_year/encaenia/past_five_years/honorary06.html |title=Honorary degrees 2006 - University of Oxford |access-date=13 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217065910/http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/university_year/encaenia/past_five_years/honorary06.html |archive-date=17 December 2010 }}</ref>

He was hired as a teacher by [[Boston University]] in the United States, where he founded the [[Boston Playwrights' Theatre]] in 1981. That year he also received a [[MacArthur Foundation Fellowship]] in the United States. Walcott taught literature and writing at Boston University for more than two decades, publishing new books of poetry and plays on a regular basis. Walcott retired from his position at Boston University in 2007. 

Through the years he had become friends with other poets, including the Russian expatriate [[Joseph Brodsky]], who lived and worked in the U.S. after being exiled in the 1970s; and the Irishman [[Seamus Heaney]], who also taught in Boston.<ref name=als/>

Walcott's epic poem ''[[Omeros]]'' (1990), which loosely echoes and refers to characters from the ''[[Iliad]]'', has been critically praised as his "major achievement."<ref name=pf/> The book was praised by such publications as ''[[The Washington Post]]'' and ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'', which chose ''Omeros'' as one of its "Best Books of 1990".<ref>{{cite news|title=Editors' Choice: The Best Books of 1990|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/02/books/editors-choice-the-best-books-of-1990.html|access-date=18 March 2017|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2 December 1990|archive-date=17 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617115924/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/02/books/editors-choice-the-best-books-of-1990.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Walcott was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1992, the second Caribbean writer to receive the honour after [[Saint-John Perse]], who was born in [[Guadeloupe]], and received the award in 1960. The Nobel committee described Walcott's work as "a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment",<ref name=pf/> with the jury report praising him as the "Caribbean Homer".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poets/poet/102-415_Walcott|title=Derek Walcott|website=[[Poetry International Web|Poetry International]]|publisher=Poetry Foundation|access-date=2 November 2025}}</ref> In 2004, he won an [[Anisfield-Wolf Book Award]]<ref name="anisfield-wolf.org"/> for Lifetime Achievement.

His later poetry collections include ''Tiepolo's Hound'' (2000), illustrated with copies of his watercolours;<ref>[http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5936 "Derek Walcott's ''Tiepolo's Hound''"], essay, Academy of American Poets, 18 February 2005. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100803205624/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5936 |date=3 August 2010 }}.</ref> ''The Prodigal'' (2004), and ''White Egrets'' (2010), which received the T. S. Eliot Prize<ref name=pf/><ref Name="British Council"/> and the 2011 [[OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Derek_Walcott_wins_OCM_Bocas_Prize-121040233.html |title=Derek Walcott wins OCM Bocas Prize |work=[[Trinidad Express]] |date=30 April 2011 |access-date=30 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315153758/http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Derek_Walcott_wins_OCM_Bocas_Prize-121040233.html |archive-date=15 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Derek Walcott held the Elias Ghanem Chair in Creative Writing at the [[University of Nevada, Las Vegas]] in 2007.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/poet-playwright-and-nobel-laureate-derek-walcott-speak-unlv-april-19 |title=Poet, Playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott to Speak at UNLV April 19 |date=6 April 2007 |publisher=UNLV |access-date=12 October 2022 |archive-date=12 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221012120941/https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/poet-playwright-and-nobel-laureate-derek-walcott-speak-unlv-april-19 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2008, Walcott gave the first [[Cola Debrot Lecture]]s<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.spui25.nl/gedeelde-content/evenementen/lezingen/2008/05/nobelprijs-winnaar-derek-walcott-bezoekt-amsterdam.html?cb|title=Nobelprijs winnaar Derek Walcott bezoekt Amsterdam|website=Spui 25 (Academic Podium of University of Amsterdam)|access-date=9 June 2020|language=nl|archive-date=9 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609065157/https://www.spui25.nl/gedeelde-content/evenementen/lezingen/2008/05/nobelprijs-winnaar-derek-walcott-bezoekt-amsterdam.html?cb|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2009, Walcott began a three-year distinguished scholar-in-residence position at the [[University of Alberta]]. In 2010, he became Professor of Poetry at the [[University of Essex]].<ref name=UoE>{{cite web|url=http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/event.aspx?e_id=1156|title=Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is new Professor of Poetry|date=11 December 2009|access-date=10 January 2010|publisher=University of Essex|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170502010909/http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/event.aspx?e_id=1156|archive-date=2 May 2017}}</ref>

As a part of St Lucia's Independence Day celebrations, in February 2016, Walcott was made one of the first knights of the [[Order of Saint Lucia]].<ref name=list>{{cite news|url=http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/list-of-awards-to-be-given-on-independence-day/|title=List of awards to be given on Independence Day|date=22 February 2016|access-date=22 February 2016|work=St Lucia News Online|archive-date=3 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203013149/https://www.stlucianewsonline.com/list-of-awards-to-be-given-on-independence-day/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Writing==
[[File:Derek Walcott - Omeros.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb|[[Wall poems in Leiden|Wall poem "Omeros" in Leiden]] ]]
[[File:WallPoemTheHagueDerekWalcott.JPG|upright=1.35|thumb|Wall poem "Midsummer, Tobago" in [[The Hague]]]]

===Themes===
[[Methodism]] and spirituality have played a significant role from the beginning in Walcott's work. He commented: "I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a [[vocation]], a religious vocation." Describing his writing process, he wrote: "the body feels it is melting into what it has seen… the 'I' not being important. That is the ecstasy... Ultimately, it's what [[Yeats]] says: 'Such a sweetness flows into the breast that we laugh at everything and everything we look upon is blessed.' That's always there. It's a benediction, a transference. It's gratitude, really. The more of that a poet keeps, the more genuine his nature."<ref name="Paris Review" /> He also notes: "if one thinks a poem is coming on... you do make a retreat, a withdrawal into some kind of silence that cuts out everything around you. What you're taking on is really not a renewal of your identity but actually a renewal of your anonymity."<ref name="Paris Review" />

===Influences===
Walcott said that his writing was influenced by the work of the American poets [[Robert Lowell]] and [[Elizabeth Bishop]], who were also friends.<ref name="Paris Review" />

===Playwriting===
He published more than twenty plays, the majority of which have been produced by the [[Trinidad Theatre Workshop]] and have also been widely staged elsewhere. Many of them address, either directly or indirectly, the liminal status of the West Indies in the post-colonial period.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72B3hZjp_LoC&q=derek+walcott+paradoxes+postcolonial&pg=PA22|title=Postcolonial Paradoxes in French Caribbean Writing: Césaire, Glissant, Condé|last=Suk|first=Jeannie|date=17 May 2001|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=9780191584404|language=en|access-date=31 October 2020|archive-date=8 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090347/https://books.google.com/books?id=72B3hZjp_LoC&q=derek+walcott+paradoxes+postcolonial&pg=PA22#v=snippet&q=derek%20walcott%20paradoxes%20postcolonial&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Through poetry he also explores the paradoxes and complexities of this legacy.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nidhi|first=Mahajan|date=1 January 2015|title=Cultural Tensions and Hybrid Identities in Derek Walcott's Poetry|url=http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1141/cultural-tensions-and-hybrid-identities-in-derek-walcotts-poetry|journal=Inquiries Journal|volume=7|issue=9|access-date=18 March 2017|archive-date=19 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319195741/http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1141/cultural-tensions-and-hybrid-identities-in-derek-walcotts-poetry|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Essays===
In his 1970 essay "What the Twilight Says: An Overture", discussing art and theatre in his native region (from ''Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays''), Walcott reflects on the West Indies as a colonized space.  He discusses the problems for an artist of a region with little in the way of truly [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous]] forms, and with little national or nationalist identity. He states: "We are all strangers here... Our bodies think in one language and move in another". The epistemological effects of colonization inform plays such as ''Ti-Jean and his Brothers''. Mi-Jean, one of the eponymous brothers, is shown to have much information but truly knows nothing. Every line Mi-Jean recites is rote knowledge gained from the coloniser; he is unable to synthesize it or apply it to his life as a colonised person.<ref>{{cite news|title=Walcott: Caribbean literary colossus | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319112052/http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2016/02/25/walcott-caribbean-literary-colossus/ | archive-date=2017-03-19| url=http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2016/02/25/walcott-caribbean-literary-colossus/|location=St Michael, Barbados |access-date=19 March 2017|work=Barbados Today|date=25 February 2016}}</ref>

Walcott notes of growing up in West Indian culture:

<blockquote>What we were deprived of was also our privilege. There was a great joy in making a world that so far, up to then, had been undefined... My generation of West Indian writers has felt such a powerful elation at having the privilege of writing about places and people for the first time and, simultaneously, having behind them the tradition of knowing how well it can be done—by a [[Daniel Defoe|Defoe]], a [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], a [[Henry Handel Richardson|Richardson]].<ref name="Paris Review" /></blockquote>

Walcott identified as "absolutely a Caribbean writer", a pioneer, helping to make sense of the legacy of deep colonial damage.<ref name="Paris Review" /> In such poems as "The Castaway" (1965) and in the play ''[[Pantomime (Walcott play)|Pantomime]]'' (1978), he uses the metaphors of shipwreck and [[Robinson Crusoe|Crusoe]] to describe the culture and what is required of artists after colonialism and slavery: both the freedom and the challenge to begin again, salvage the best of other cultures and make something new. These images recur in later work as well. He writes: "If we continue to sulk and say, Look at what the slave-owner did, and so forth, we will never mature. While we sit moping or writing morose poems and novels that glorify a non-existent past, then time passes us by."<ref name="Paris Review" />

==''Omeros''==
{{main|Omeros}}
Walcott's epic book-length poem ''[[Omeros]]'' was published in 1990 to critical acclaim. The poem very loosely echoes and references [[Homer]] and some of his major characters from ''[[The Iliad]]''. Some of the poem's major characters include the island fishermen Achille and Hector, the retired English officer Major Plunkett and his wife Maud, the housemaid Helen, the blind man Seven Seas (who symbolically represents Homer), and the author himself.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/walcott-omeros.html|title=Bringing Him Back Alive|last=Lefkowitz|first=Mary|author-link=Mary Lefkowitz |date=7 October 1990|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=18 March 2017}}</ref>

Although the main narrative of the poem takes place on the island of St. Lucia, where Walcott was born and raised, Walcott also includes scenes from [[Brookline, Massachusetts]] (where Walcott was living and teaching at the time of the poem's composition), and the character Achille imagines a voyage from Africa onto a slave ship that is headed for the Americas; also, in Book Five of the poem, Walcott narrates some of his travel experiences in a variety of cities around the world, including [[Lisbon]], London, [[Dublin]], Rome, and Toronto.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Morrison|first=James V.|date=1 January 1999|title=Homer Travels to the Caribbean: Teaching Walcott's "Omeros"|jstor=4352373|journal=The Classical World|volume=93|issue=1|pages=83–99|doi=10.2307/4352373}}</ref>
 
Composed in a variation on ''[[terza rima]]'', the work explores the themes that run throughout Walcott's oeuvre: the beauty of the islands, the colonial burden, the fragmentation of Caribbean identity, and the role of the poet in a post-colonial world.<ref name="Bixby">Bixby, Patrick.  [http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Walcott.html "Derek Walcott"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215202946/http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Walcott.html |date=15 December 2010 }}, essay: Spring 2000, [[Emory University]]. Retrieved 30 March 2012.</ref>

In this epic, Walcott speaks in favour of unique Caribbean cultures and traditions to challenge the modernity that existed as a consequence of colonialism.<ref>Baral, Raj Kumar and Shrestha, Heena (2020). "What is behind Myth and History in Derek Walcott's Omeros". ''Cogent Arts and Humanities'', 7.1. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1776945 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090451/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2020.1776945 |date=8 August 2024 }}</ref>

=== Reception ===
Walcott's work has received praise from major poets including [[Robert Graves]], who wrote that Walcott "handles English with a closer understanding of its inner magic than most, if not any, of his contemporaries",<ref>Robert D. Hamner, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CkNTOawGMjwC&q=handles+English&pg=PA1 "Introduction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231010174754/https://books.google.com/books?id=CkNTOawGMjwC&q=handles+English&pg=PA1 |date=10 October 2023 }}, ''Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott'' (Three Continents, 1993), Lynne Rienner, 1997, p. 1.</ref> and [[Joseph Brodsky]], who praised Walcott's work, writing: "For almost forty years his throbbing and relentless lines kept arriving in the English language like tidal waves, coagulating into an archipelago of poems without which the map of modern literature would effectively match wallpaper. He gives us more than himself or 'a world'; he gives us a sense of infinity embodied in the language."<ref Name="Academy" /> Walcott noted that he, Brodsky, and the Irish poet [[Seamus Heaney]], who all taught in the United States, were a band of poets "outside the American experience".

The poetry critic [[William Logan (poet)|William Logan]] critiqued Walcott's work in a ''New York Times'' book review of Walcott's ''Selected Poems''. While he praised Walcott's writing in ''Sea Grapes'' and ''The Arkansas Testament'', Logan had mostly negative things to say about Walcott's poetry, calling ''Omeros'' "clumsy" and ''Another Life'' "pretentious". Logan concluded with: "No living poet has written verse more delicately rendered or distinguished than Walcott, though few individual poems seem destined to be remembered."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Logan.t.html|first1=William|last1=Logan|title=The Poet of Exile|date=8 April 2007|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=19 March 2017|archive-date=22 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170322100843/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Logan.t.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Most reviews of Walcott's work are more positive. For instance, in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' review of ''The Poetry of Derek Walcott'', [[Adam Kirsch]] had high praise for Walcott's oeuvre, describing his style in the following manner:

<blockquote>By combining the grammar of vision with the freedom of metaphor, Walcott produces a beautiful style that is also a philosophical style. People perceive the world on dual channels, Walcott's verse suggests, through the senses and through the mind, and each is constantly seeping into the other. The result is a state of perpetual magical thinking, a kind of ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' world where concepts have bodies and landscapes are always liable to get up and start talking.<ref name=Kirsch>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/03/full-fathom-five-2|title=Full Fathom Five|last=Kirsch|first=Adam|date=3 February 2014|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=18 March 2017|archive-date=19 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319222248/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/03/full-fathom-five-2|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

Kirsch calls ''Another Life'' Walcott's "first major peak" and analyzes the painterly qualities of Walcott's imagery from his earliest work through to later books such as ''Tiepolo's Hound''. Kirsch also explores the post-colonial politics in Walcott's work, calling him "the postcolonial writer par excellence". Kirsch calls the early poem "A Far Cry from Africa" a turning point in Walcott's development as a poet. Like Logan, Kirsch is critical of ''Omeros'', which he believes Walcott fails to successfully sustain over its entirety. Although ''Omeros'' is the volume of Walcott's that usually receives the most critical praise, Kirsch believes ''Midsummer'' to be his best book.<ref name=Kirsch />

In 2013 Dutch filmmaker Ida Does released ''Poetry is an Island'', a feature documentary film about Walcott's life and the ever-present influence of his birthplace of [[St Lucia]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Charles|first1=Dee Lundy|title=It's Past Time For Walcott's Poetry Island|url=http://stluciastar.com/its-past-time-for-walcotts-poetry-island/|access-date=11 April 2017|work=St Lucia Star|date=19 May 2014|archive-date=11 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170411135816/http://stluciastar.com/its-past-time-for-walcotts-poetry-island/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=El Gammal-Ortiz|first1=Sharif|title=Film: Review Of "Poetry Is An Island"|url=https://repeatingislands.com/2015/08/13/film-review-of-poetry-is-an-island/|access-date=11 April 2017|work=Repeating Islands|date=13 August 2015|archive-date=11 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170411140514/https://repeatingislands.com/2015/08/13/film-review-of-poetry-is-an-island/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Personal life==
In 1954, Walcott married Fay Moston, a secretary, and they had a son, the St. Lucian painter Peter Walcott. The marriage ended in divorce in 1959. Walcott married a second time to Margaret Maillard in 1962, who worked as an [[almoner]] in a hospital. Together they had two daughters, [[Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw]] and Anna Walcott-Hardy, before divorcing in 1976.<ref>[http://www4.guardian.co.tt/news/2017-03-18/world-mourns "Sir Derek loses battle with kidney disease | World mourns"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403010324/http://www4.guardian.co.tt/news/2017-03-18/world-mourns |date=3 April 2019 }}, ''Trinidad and Tobago Guardian'', 18 March 2017.</ref> In 1976, Walcott married for a third time, to actress Norline Metivier; they divorced in 1993. His companion until his death was Sigrid Nama, a former art gallery owner.<ref name=als/><ref name=iww>{{cite book|title=The International Who's Who 2004|date=2003|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9781857432176|page=1760|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sR4Ch1dMe8IC&pg=PA1760|access-date=5 April 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Haynes|first1=Leanne|title=Interview: Peter Walcott|url=http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2013/08/peter-walcott/|access-date=5 April 2017|work=ARC Magazine|date=2 August 2013|archive-date=5 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170405171952/http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2013/08/peter-walcott/|url-status=usurped}}</ref><ref name="LofStL">{{cite news|last1=Wroe|first1=Nicholas|title=The laureate of St Lucia|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/02/poetry|work=The Guardian|date=2 September 2000|access-date=17 March 2017|archive-date=8 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090352/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/02/poetry|url-status=live}}</ref>

Walcott was known for his passion for traveling, visiting countries around the world. He split his time between New York, Boston, and St. Lucia, and incorporated the influences of different locations into his pieces of work.<ref name=pf/>

==Allegations of sexual harassment==
In 1982, a Harvard sophomore accused Walcott of [[sexual harassment]] in September 1981. She alleged that after she refused a sexual advance from him, she was given the only C in the class. In 1996, a student at Boston University sued Walcott for sexual harassment and "offensive sexual physical [[Sexual assault|contact]]". The two reached a settlement.<ref>{{Cite news|first1=Angela A.|last1=Sun|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/6/4/poet-accused-of-harassment-students-in/|title=Poet Accused of Harassment|work=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|date=4 June 2007|access-date=25 March 2017|archive-date=14 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814062322/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/6/4/poet-accused-of-harassment-students-in/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Lecherous Professor: Sexual Harassment on Campus |first1= Billie Wright |last1=Dziech|first2=Linda |last2=Weiner|edition= second|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana. IL|year= 1990|isbn=978-0-252-06118-9|url=https://archive.org/details/lecherousprofess00dzie|url-access=registration |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lecherousprofess00dzie/page/29 29]–32}}</ref>

In 2009, Walcott was a leading candidate for the position of [[Oxford Professor of Poetry]]. He withdrew his candidacy after reports of the accusations against him of sexual harassment from 1981 and 1996.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Griffiths|first1=Sian|last2=Grimston|first2=Jack|title=Sex pest file gives Oxford poetry race a nasty edge|url=https://www.thetimes.com/best-law-firms/profile-legal/article/sex-pest-file-gives-oxford-poetry-race-a-nasty-edge-trfrtkj9zfn|access-date=5 April 2017|work=[[The Sunday Times]]|date=10 May 2009|location=London|archive-date=6 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406020337/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-pest-file-gives-oxford-poetry-race-a-nasty-edge-trfrtkj9zfn|url-status=live}}</ref>

When the media learned that pages from an American book on the topic were sent anonymously to a number of Oxford academics, this aroused their interest in the university's decisions.<ref name="Woods">{{cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/poetry/article6350589.ece|title=Call for Oxford poet to resign after sex row|date=24 May 2009|access-date=25 May 2009|work=The Sunday Times|location=London|first=Richard|last=Woods|archive-date=17 June 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617003953/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/poetry/article6350589.ece|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Ch4News">{{cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/arts_entertainment/poetic+justice+as+padel+steps+down/3169662|title=Poetic justice as Padel steps down|date=26 May 2009|access-date=26 May 2009|publisher=[[Channel 4 News]]|archive-date=28 May 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090528203314/http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/arts_entertainment/poetic+justice+as+padel+steps+down/3169662|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Ruth Padel]], also a leading candidate, was elected to the post. Within days, ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' reported that she had alerted journalists to the harassment cases.<ref name="Khan">{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5378474/Ruth-Padel-under-pressure-to-resign-Oxford-post-over-emails-about-rival-poet-Derek-Walcott.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5378474/Ruth-Padel-under-pressure-to-resign-Oxford-post-over-emails-about-rival-poet-Derek-Walcott.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Ruth Padel under pressure to resign Oxford post over emails about rival poet Derek Walcott|date=24 May 2009|access-date=24 May 2009|work=The Daily Telegraph | location=London | first1=Urmee | last1=Khan | first2=Richard | last2=Eden}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref name="Padel">{{cite news|agency=Press Association |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/25/ruth-padel-oxford-poetry-resigns |title=Oxford professor of poetry Ruth Padel resigns |work=The Guardian |date= 25 May 2009|access-date=20 September 2010 | location=London}}</ref> Under severe media and academic pressure, Padel resigned.<ref name="Khan"/><ref name="Hay festival diary">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/video/2009/may/26/hay-festival-ruth-padel|title=Hay festival diary: Ruth Padel talks about the poetry professorship scandal|date=26 May 2009|access-date=26 May 2009|work=The Guardian|location=London|first=Rebecca|last=Lovell|archive-date=8 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090344/https://www.theguardian.com/books/video/2009/may/26/hay-festival-ruth-padel|url-status=live}}</ref> Padel was the first woman to be elected to the Oxford post, and some journalists attributed the criticism of her to [[misogyny]]<ref>Libby Purves, [https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/a-familiar-reek-of-misogyny-and-mistrust-9tbzbfbk36x "A familiar reek of misogyny and mistrust"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407081529/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/libbypurves/article2043191.ece |date=7 April 2014 }}, ''The Times'', 18 May 2009.</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-a-male-poet-wouldnt-have-been-blamed-for-rough-tactics-1690430.html | title=A Male Poet Wouldn't Have Been Blamed for Rough Tactics | last=Alibhai Brown | first=Yasmin | newspaper=[[The Independent]] | date=25 May 2009 | access-date=26 August 2017 | archive-date=30 January 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130034641/http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-a-male-poet-wouldnt-have-been-blamed-for-rough-tactics-1690430.html | url-status=live }}</ref> and a gender war at Oxford. They said that a male poet would not have been so criticized, as she had reported published information, not rumour.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Halford |first=Macy |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/05/oxfords-gender-trouble.html |title=The Book Bench: Oxford's Gender Trouble |magazine=The New Yorker |date=7 January 2009 |access-date=20 September 2010 |archive-date=19 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019225021/http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/05/oxfords-gender-trouble.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Gardner |first=Suzanne |url=http://www.quillandquire.com/book-news/2009/05/26/ruth-padel-resigns-but-the-gender-war-rages-on/ |title=Ruth Padel resigns, but the 'gender war' rages on |work=Quill and Quire |date=26 May 2009 |access-date=21 March 2017 |archive-date=22 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170322110944/http://www.quillandquire.com/book-news/2009/05/26/ruth-padel-resigns-but-the-gender-war-rages-on/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Numerous respected poets, including [[Seamus Heaney]] and [[Al Alvarez]], published a letter of support for Walcott in ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]],'' and criticized the press furore.<ref>[[Al Alvarez]], [[Alan Brownjohn]], Carmen Bugan, [[David Constantine]], [[Elizabeth Cook (writer)|Elizabeth Cook]], [[Robert Conquest]], [[Jonty Driver]], [[Seamus Heaney]], [[Jenny Joseph]], [[Grevel Lindop]], [[Patrick McGuinness (writer)|Patrick McGuinness]], [[Lucy Newlyn]], [[Bernard O'Donoghue]], [[Michael Schmidt (poet)|Michael Schmidt]], [[Jon Stallworthy]], [[Michael Suarez]], [[D. M. Thomas|Don Thomas]], [[Anthony Thwaite]], "Oxford Professor of Poetry," ''The Times Literary Supplement'', 3 June 2009, p. 6.</ref> Other commentators suggested that both poets were casualties of the media interest in an internal university affair because the story "had everything, from sex claims to allegations of character assassination".<ref name="enotes">[http://www.enotes.com/topic/Oxford_Professor_of_Poetry "Oxford Professor of Poetry"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090456/https://www.enotes.com/topics |date=8 August 2024 }}, ENotes.</ref> [[Simon Armitage]] and other poets expressed regret at Padel's resignation.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/05 |title=Newsnight: From the web team |publisher=BBC |date=May 2009 |access-date=10 September 2010 |archive-date=6 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806175344/http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/05/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Robert McCrum |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/31/ruth-padel-derek-walcott-oxford-professor-poetry |title=Who dares to follow in Ruth Padel's footsteps? |work=The Observer |date=31 May 2009 |access-date=18 September 2010 |location=London |author-link=Robert McCrum |archive-date=8 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090346/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/31/ruth-padel-derek-walcott-oxford-professor-poetry |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Death==
[[File:Derek Walcott's grave on Morne Fortune.jpg|thumb|Walcott's grave on [[Morne Fortune]]]]
Walcott died at his home in Cap Estate, St. Lucia, on 17 March 2017.<ref>{{cite news |title=Derek Walcott has died |url=https://stluciatimes.com/2017/03/17/derek-walcott-died |newspaper=St. Lucia Times |date=17 March 2017 |access-date=17 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318010059/https://stluciatimes.com/2017/03/17/derek-walcott-died |archive-date=18 March 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He was 87. He was given a state funeral on Saturday, 25 March, with a service at the [[Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Castries]] and burial at [[Morne Fortune]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170326020129/http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/World-bids-farewell-to-Derek-Walcott "World bids farewell to Derek Walcott"], ''[[Jamaica Observer]]'', 25 March 2017.</ref><ref>[https://stluciatimes.com/2017/03/27/derek-walcott-laid-rest "Derek Walcott laid to rest"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714130259/https://stluciatimes.com/2017/03/27/derek-walcott-laid-rest/ |date=14 July 2018 }}, ''St. Lucia Times'', 27 March 2017.</ref>

==Legacy==
In 1993, a public square and park located in central Castries, Saint Lucia, was named [[Derek Walcott Square]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Rough Guide to St Lucia |last1=Luntta |first1=Karl |last2=Agate |first2=Nick |publisher=Rough Guides |year=2003 |page=60 |isbn=978-1-8582-8916-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hm-zPSOzql0C&q=%22Derek+Walcott+Square%22&pg=PA60 |access-date=31 October 2020 |archive-date=8 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808091004/https://books.google.com/books?id=Hm-zPSOzql0C&q=%22Derek+Walcott+Square%22&pg=PA60#v=snippet&q=%22Derek%20Walcott%20Square%22&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> A documentary film, ''Poetry Is an Island: Derek Walcott'', by filmmaker [[Ida Does]], was produced to honour him and his legacy in 2013.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Romero |first1=Ivette |editor-last1=Knight |editor-first1=Franklin W. |editor-last2=Gates |editor-first2=Henry Louis Jr. |editor2-link=Henry Louis Gates Jr. |title=Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography |date=2016 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford, England |isbn=978-0-199-93580-2 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199935796.001.0001/acref-9780199935796-e-664?rskey=CFMZIz&result=13 |chapter=Does, Ida (1955– ), film director and journalist |access-date=6 September 2020 |archive-date=8 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808091008/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199935796.001.0001/acref-9780199935796-e-664?rskey=CFMZIz&result=13 |url-status=live }}{{subscription required|via=[http://www.oxfordreference.com/ Oxford University Press]'s Reference Online}}</ref>

The Derek Walcott Collection is hosted by the main library of the [[University of the West Indies at St. Augustine]], Trinidad. It contains Walcott's manuscripts, correspondence, unpublished works, diaries, and notebooks. In 1997, it was added by [[UNESCO]] to the [[Memory of the World Programme|Memory of the World international register]], recognising it as globally important documentary heritage.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Derek Walcott Collection |url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/derek-walcott-collection |access-date=2025-04-17 |publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme}}</ref>

The [[Saint Lucia National Trust]] acquired Walcott's childhood home at 17 Chaussée Road, Castries, in November 2015, renovating it before opening it to the public as Walcott House in January 2016.<ref>Bishop, Stan, [http://thevoiceslu.com/2016/01/walcott-house-opens/ "Walcott House Opens – Nobel Laureate Says He's Thankful"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170328105650/http://thevoiceslu.com/2016/01/walcott-house-opens/ |date=28 March 2017 }}, ''The Voice'', 28 January 2016.</ref>

In 2019, Arrowsmith Press, in partnership with The Derek Walcott Festival in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and the Boston Playwrights' Theatre, began awarding the annual Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry to a full-length book of poems by a living poet who is not a US citizen published in the previous calendar year.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Walcott |url=https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/walcott |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=ARROWSMITH |language=en-US |archive-date=21 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221002224/https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/walcott |url-status=live }}</ref>

In January 2020, the [[Sir Arthur Lewis Community College]] in St. Lucia announced that Walcott's books on Caribbean Literature and poetry have been donated to its Library.<ref>[http://salcc.edu.lc/main/hand_over_derek_walcott.html "Donation Of Walcott Library To SALCC Library"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200227190445/http://salcc.edu.lc/main/hand_over_derek_walcott.html |date=27 February 2020 }}, Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, 30 January 2020.</ref>

==Awards and honours==
* 1969: [[Cholmondeley Award]]<ref name=chidi/>
* 1971: [[Obie Award]] for Best Foreign Play (for ''Dream on Monkey Mountain'')<ref name=chidi>{{cite book|last1=Chidi|first1=Sylvia Lovina|title=The Greatest Black Achievers in History|date=2004|publisher=Lulu|isbn=9781291909333|pages=34–37|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lzjNBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA35|access-date=5 April 2017|archive-date=8 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240808090900/https://books.google.com/books?id=lzjNBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>
* 1972: [[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]]<ref name="Oxford University"/>
* 1981: MacArthur Foundation Fellowship ("genius award")<ref name=chidi/>
* 1988: [[Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry]]<ref name=iww/>
* 1990: [[Arts Council of Wales]] International Writers Prize<ref name=chidi/>
* 1990: [[W. H. Smith Literary Award]] (for poetry ''Omeros'')<ref name=iww/>
* 1992: [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]<ref name=iww/>
* 2004: [[Anisfield-Wolf Book Award]] for Lifetime Achievement<ref name="anisfield-wolf.org">[http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/books/lifetime-derek-walcott/?sortby=year "Derek Walcott, 2004 – Lifetime Achievement"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141107071348/http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/books/lifetime-derek-walcott/?sortby=year |date=7 November 2014 }}, Winners – Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.</ref>
* 2008: Honorary doctorate from the [[University of Essex]]<ref name=UoE />
* 2011: [[T. S. Eliot Prize]] (for poetry collection ''White Egrets'')<ref Name="Eliot"/>
* 2011: [[OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature]] (for ''White Egrets'')<ref name=bocas/>
* 2015: [[Griffin Poetry Prize|Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry]] Lifetime Recognition Award<ref>{{cite web|title=2015 – Derek Walcott|url=http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/lifetime-recognition-award/derek-walcott/|publisher=The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry|access-date=5 April 2017|location=Oakville, Ontario|date=3 June 2015|archive-date=29 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329164521/http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/lifetime-recognition-award/derek-walcott/|url-status=live}}</ref>
* 2016: [[Order of Saint Lucia|Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Lucia]]<ref name=list/>

==List of works==
* {{OL author}}

===Poetry collections===
{{div col}}
* 1948: ''25 Poems''
* 1949: ''Epitaph for the Young: Xll Cantos''
* 1951: ''Poems''
* 1962: ''In a Green Night: Poems 1948—60''
* 1964: ''Selected Poems''
* 1965: ''The Castaway and Other Poems''
* 1969: ''The Gulf and Other Poems''
* 1973: ''Another Life''
* 1976: ''Sea Grapes''
* 1979: ''The Star-Apple Kingdom''
* 1981: ''Selected Poetry''
* 1981: ''The Fortunate Traveller''
* 1983: ''The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden''
* 1984: ''Midsummer''
* 1986: ''Collected Poems, 1948–1984'', featuring "[[Love After Love (poem)|Love After Love]]"
* 1987: ''The Arkansas Testament''
* 1990: ''[[Omeros]]''
* 1997: ''The Bounty''
* 2000: ''Tiepolo's Hound,'' includes Walcott's watercolors
* 2004: ''The Prodigal''
* 2007: ''Selected Poems'' (edited, selected, and with an introduction by [[Edward Baugh]])
* 2010: ''White Egrets''
* 2014: ''The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948–2013''
* 2016: ''Morning, Paramin'' (illustrated by Peter Doig)
{{div col end}}

===Plays===
{{div col}}
* 1950: ''[[Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes]]''
* 1952: ''[[Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio Production]]''
* 1953: ''Wine of the Country''
* 1954: ''The Sea at Dauphin: A Play in One Act''
* 1957: ''Ione''
* 1958: ''Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama''
* 1958: ''Ti-Jean and His Brothers''
* 1966: ''Malcochon: or, Six in the Rain''
* 1967: ''[[Dream on Monkey Mountain]]''
* 1970: ''In a Fine Castle''
* 1974: ''The Joker of Seville''
* 1974: ''The Charlatan''
* 1976: ''O Babylon!''
* 1977: ''Remembrance''
* 1978: ''Pantomime''
* 1980: ''The Joker of Seville and O Babylon!: Two Plays''
* 1982: ''The Isle Is Full of Noises''
* 1984: ''The Haitian Earth''
* 1986: Three Plays: ''[[The Last Carnival]]'', ''[[Beef, No Chicken]]'' and ''A Branch of the Blue Nile''
* 1991: ''Steel''
* 1993: ''Odyssey: A Stage Version''
* 1997: ''[[The Capeman]]'' (book and lyrics, both in collaboration with [[Paul Simon]])
* 2002: ''Walker and The Ghost Dance''
* 2011: ''Moon-Child''
* 2014: ''O Starry Starry Night''
{{div col end}}

===Other books===
* 1990: ''The Poet in the Theatre'', Poetry Book Society (London)
* 1993: ''The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* 1996: ''Conversations with Derek Walcott'' (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi)
* 1996: (With Joseph Brodsky and Seamus Heaney) ''Homage to Robert Frost'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* 1998: ''What the Twilight Says'' (essays), (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* 2002: ''Walker and Ghost Dance'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* 2004: ''Another Life: Fully Annotated'', Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers

==See also==
*[[Black Nobel Prize laureates]]
* "[[Love After Love (poem)|Love After Love]]", a poem by Derek Walcott
* [[Caribbean poetry|Caribbean Epic]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* Abani, Chris. ''The myth of fingerprints: Signifying as displacement in Derek Walcott's "Omeros".'' University of Southern California, PhD dissertation. 2006.
* Abodunrin, Femi. "The Muse of History: Derek Walcott and the Topos of {Un} naming in West Indian Writing". ''Journal of West Indian Literature'' 7, no. 1 (1996): 54–77.
* Amany Abdelkahhar Aldardeer Ahmed, Amany. "The Quest for a Cultural Identity in Derek Walcott's Another Life". مجلة کلية الآداب 57, no. 3 (2020): 101–146.
* [[William Baer (poet)|Baer, William]], ed. ''Conversations with Derek Walcott''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.
* Baugh, Edward, ''Derek Walcott''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
* Breslin, Paul, ''Nobody's Nation: Reading Derek Walcott''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-226-07426-9}}.
* [[Stewart Brown|Brown, Stewart]], ed., ''The Art of Derek Walcott''. Chester Springs, PA.: Dufour, 1991; Bridgend: Seren Books, 1992.
* Burnett, Paula, ''Derek Walcott: Politics and Poetics''. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
* Figueroa, John J. "Some subtleties of the isle: A commentary on certain aspects of Derek Walcott's sonnet sequence. ''Tales of the Islands'' (1976): 190–228.
* Fumagalli, Maria Cristina, ''The Flight of the Vernacular: Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott and the Impress of Dante''. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2001.
* Fumagalli, Maria Cristina, ''Agenda'' 39:1–3 (2002–03), Special Issue on Derek Walcott. Includes Derek Walcott's "Epitaph for the Young" (1949), republished here in its entirety.
* Fumagalli, Maria Cristina. ''Derek Walcott's Painters: A Life with Pictures''. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2023, 2025 paperback.
* Goddard, Horace I. "Untangling the thematic threads: Derek Walcott's poetry". ''Kola'' 21, no. 1 (2009): 120–131.
* Goddard, Horace I. "The Rediscovery of Ancestral Experience in Derek Walcott's Early Poetry". ''Kola'' 29, no. 2 (2017): 24–40.
* Hamner, Robert D., ''Derek Walcott''. Updated edition. Twayne's World Authors Series. TWAS 600. New York: Twayne, 1993.
* Izevbaye, D. S. "The Exile and the Prodigal: Derek Walcott as West Indian Poet". ''Caribbean Quarterly'' 26, no. 1–2 (1980): 70–82.
* King, Bruce, ''Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama: "Not Only a Playwright But a Company": The Trinidad Theatre Workshop 1959–1993''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.
* King, Bruce, ''Derek Walcott, A Caribbean Life''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
* Marks, Susan Jane. ''That terrible vowel, that I: autobiography and Derek Walcott's Another life''. Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1989.
* {{cite book |last1=McConnell |first1=Justine |title=Derek Walcott and the creation of a classical Caribbean |date=2023 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |location=London |isbn=9781474291521}}
* {{cite journal|doi=10.1080/14788810.2016.1220790|title=Forms of Exile: Experimental Self-Positioning in Postcolonial Caribbean Poetry|year=2016|last1=Müller|first1=Timo|journal=Atlantic Studies|volume=13|issue=4|pages=457–471|s2cid=152181840}}
* {{cite journal|author=Sarkar, Nirjhar|title=Existence as self-making in Derek Walcott's ''The Sea at Dauphin''|journal=[[Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal]]|date=14 October 2019 |volume= 14.2 (2018)|pages= 1–15 |url=https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium/vol14/iss2/4/}}
* Sinnewe, Dirk: ''Divided to the Vein? Derek Walcott‘s drama and the formation of cultural Identities.''   Königshausen u. Neumann, Dec. 2001.
* Terada, Rei, ''Derek Walcott's Poetry: American Mimicry''. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992.
* Thieme, John, ''Derek Walcott''. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Derek Walcott}}{{Archival records|title=Derek Walcott papers}} 
{{wikiquote|Derek Walcott}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110104042528/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=authC2D9C28A0a4dc1BE88LsX2F7F9A1 British Council writers' profile], works listing, critical review
* [http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7830 Profile, poems written and audio] at Poetry Archive 
* [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/derek-walcott Profile and poems] at Poetry Foundation
* [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220 Profile, poems audio and written], Poetry of American Poets
* [http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Walcott.html Profile and analysis], [[Emory University]]
* [http://www.pwf.cz/en/authors-archive/derek-walcott/ Profile, interviews, articles, archive]. [[Prague Writers' Festival]]
* [[Edward Hirsch]], [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2719/the-art-of-poetry-no-37-derek-walcott "Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37"], ''The Paris Review'', Winter 1986
* [http://www.lannan.org/events/derek-walcott-with-glyn-maxwell Lannan Foundation Reading and Conversation With Glyn Maxwell]. November 2002 (audio).
* Biography available in [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MNEGJEC Saint Lucians and the Order of CARICOM]
* {{C-SPAN|46744}}
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093z3h Appearance on ''Desert Island Discs''], [[BBC Radio 4]], 9 June 1991
* {{Nobelprize}}

{{Derek Walcott plays}}
{{Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1976–2000}}
{{1992 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature}}

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