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The Prodigal: A Poem
Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott's The Prodigal is a journey through physical and mental landscapes, from Greenwich Village to the Alps, Pescara to Milan, Germany to Cartagena.
But always in "the music of memory, water," abides St. Lucia, the author's birthplace, and the living sea. In this book of poems, Derek Walcott has created a sweeping yet intimate epic of an exhausted Europe studded with church spires and mountains, train stations and statuary, where the New World is an idea, a "wavering map," and where History subsumes the natural history of his "unimportantly beautiful" island home. Here, the wanderer fears that he has been tainted by his exile, that his life has become untranslatable, and that his craft itself is rooted in betrayal of the vivid archipelago to which, like Antaeus, he must return for the very sustenance of life.
But always in "the music of memory, water," abides St. Lucia, the author's birthplace, and the living sea. In this book of poems, Derek Walcott has created a sweeping yet intimate epic of an exhausted Europe studded with church spires and mountains, train stations and statuary, where the New World is an idea, a "wavering map," and where History subsumes the natural history of his "unimportantly beautiful" island home. Here, the wanderer fears that he has been tainted by his exile, that his life has become untranslatable, and that his craft itself is rooted in betrayal of the vivid archipelago to which, like Antaeus, he must return for the very sustenance of life.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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296 people want to read
About the author
Derek Walcott
181 books499 followersDerek Walcott was a Caribbean poet, playwright, writer and visual artist. Born in Castries, St. Lucia, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 "for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment."
His work, which developed independently of the schools of magic realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. He was best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond to the American West and London.
Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remained active with its Board of Directors until his death. He also founded Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981. In 2004, Walcott was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, and had retired from teaching poetry and drama in the Creative Writing Department at Boston University by 2007. He continued to give readings and lectures throughout the world after retiring. He divided his time between his home in the Caribbean and New York City.
His work, which developed independently of the schools of magic realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. He was best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond to the American West and London.
Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remained active with its Board of Directors until his death. He also founded Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981. In 2004, Walcott was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, and had retired from teaching poetry and drama in the Creative Writing Department at Boston University by 2007. He continued to give readings and lectures throughout the world after retiring. He divided his time between his home in the Caribbean and New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 19, 2015
I understand why this is called The Prodigal and the poetry is laced with a Christian lexicon which gives credence to the title, but midway through I could not help thinking Landscape would have been a better title (I can't help naming/renaming things forgive me) as this gorgeous journey of remembering seems less about folly and atonement as it is about capturing the beauty and emotional sweep of the various landscapes it memorializes. It is not only the experience of landscape as a noun but landscape as a verb–Walcott's lyrical reconstruction of the lands he leads us through. It is lush delicious language. The author and I have overlapping experiences of New York, Italy and the Caribbean so his journey is one I can appreciate personally as well as aesthetically. His verse has a sharp and unsentimental eye that is: tender, sensuous, and softly lit in places with humour. It filled me with wanderlust (an always danger). This is medicinal work, when the ugliness of the world and your own mind get you down, the beauty of his world will sustain you.
the peaches of summer are bouncing
on the grids of the Milanese sidewalks
in halters cut close to the coccyx.
I look and no longer sigh for the impossible
the peaches of summer are bouncing
on the grids of the Milanese sidewalks
in halters cut close to the coccyx.
I look and no longer sigh for the impossible
March 25, 2017
Personally, I just liked it. Writing wise it deserves a four or more. There were some lines and stanzas that spoke to me, but overall couldn't get lost in it. I would still love to read more of Walcott's writing however, especially his plays. May he Rest in Peace.
May 8, 2024
I read this book as part of my quest to read a book written by an author from each of the 196 countries in the world. The author is this poem is from St. Lucia.
I have undergone a transformation as I read this poetry. While writing this review, I have changed my review from 1 star to 5! How can that happen?? I thought I had no business reading/rating this book because I just don't like poetry. But as I paged through it one more time, I started re-reading and understanding it. I now feel its rhythm; I feel as though I can write this review using that rhythm! This reminds me of my experience with red wine. I have never liked it. But this year on New Year's Eve, I tried it once again. And now, at almost three score (to use his words!), I have found that I love red wine! Maybe now I can also love poetry - it shows that you never should give up on trying things - your tastes can and do change!
The author, whose home is the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, writes of his observations as he travels the world. One of the meanings of the word prodigal is "someone who returns after a long absence characterized by reckless behavior". Walcott describes the beauty and history of the cities he visits, but underlying his thoughts is a desire to return to his native home.
"So, how was Italy?" My neighbor grinned.
Trim-bearded, elegant. He was Italian.
"Good. As usual. We were in Amalfi.
Next to a picturesque port called Vertigo."
He didn't get it. "Why didn't you stay longer?"
I said: "I have an island." "and it was calling you."
To say yes was stupidness, but it was true.
I think I may go back and reread this poem :)
I have undergone a transformation as I read this poetry. While writing this review, I have changed my review from 1 star to 5! How can that happen?? I thought I had no business reading/rating this book because I just don't like poetry. But as I paged through it one more time, I started re-reading and understanding it. I now feel its rhythm; I feel as though I can write this review using that rhythm! This reminds me of my experience with red wine. I have never liked it. But this year on New Year's Eve, I tried it once again. And now, at almost three score (to use his words!), I have found that I love red wine! Maybe now I can also love poetry - it shows that you never should give up on trying things - your tastes can and do change!
The author, whose home is the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, writes of his observations as he travels the world. One of the meanings of the word prodigal is "someone who returns after a long absence characterized by reckless behavior". Walcott describes the beauty and history of the cities he visits, but underlying his thoughts is a desire to return to his native home.
"So, how was Italy?" My neighbor grinned.
Trim-bearded, elegant. He was Italian.
"Good. As usual. We were in Amalfi.
Next to a picturesque port called Vertigo."
He didn't get it. "Why didn't you stay longer?"
I said: "I have an island." "and it was calling you."
To say yes was stupidness, but it was true.
I think I may go back and reread this poem :)
September 17, 2007
That one could spend an entire lifetime traveling and observing the most beautiful things this world has to offer, and that one could put those things in a book for others to read, and that those travels and observations may not end up being even remotely interesting to others.
January 2, 2017
A great accomplishment.
April 2, 2018
a beautiful poetic journey through Europe then back to the Caribbean...
September 11, 2007
I was disappointed in this "last" book (did I read somewhere that he claimed this would be his last poetry collection?) if anything for its self-indulgence. Just when I couldn't handle another scene of light likened to some painter, he parenthetically breaks in and makes fun of himself for his knack for making such a move:
"the light / out of pearl, out of Pierro della Francesca / (you could tell he would mention a painter)"
Of course he continues to do it, and such self-poking didn't save the poem for me but deepened my sense of the project as the whimsical musings of a major poet at the end of his life, his twin brother dead, his romances failed, his former lovers and friends dead. It felt as if he were spinning his wheels.
And there was something about his acknowledgment that he missed the 20th century that struck a chord with me:
"In the middle of the nineteenth century
somewhere between Balzac and Lautreamont,
a little farther on than Baudelaire Station
where bead-eyed Verlaine sat, my train broke down,
and has been stuck there since. When I got off
I found that I had missed the Twentieth Century."
I'm coming at this from an odd angle, but his love for formal English prosody does continue through from the 19th century, almost as if he missed the Modernist revolution. I mean on one hand that sense of tradition, of writing back to the empire having mastered their language better than they speak it lends him great formal power, which I've always admired in his work as the rhyme schemes never seem forced or sing-songy thanks to the power of enjambment. And I never find the poems archaic; he is Modern, just look at the brilliant reinterpretation of Homer's work in Omeros. That sort of re-interpretation and re-presenting of our cultural inheritance in contemporary terms appeals to my imagination and makes me think of books like Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red. But I think his sense of Art with a big A is definitely a Romantic notion, especially when he makes comments like this in an interview: "There is no history in art...the criticism of art is historical, but art itself does not contain history." Come again?
His obsession with History vs. history has always intrigued me, and there's been a shift from addressing London and England as empire center to Paris and France in his last two books. It speaks to his mixed cultural legacy (St. Lucia, the Helen of the West Indies, exchanged hands between England and France again and again, so it makes sense he would write back to both). But where his preoccupation with England in his earlier work was to gain literary credibility, I find the shift to France an attempt to gain artistic credibility, especially with his identity as a painter. Just look at Tiepolo's Hound: it included 26 of his own paintings.
I would have thought the Art history, painter, ekphrastic lover in me would have appreciated his musings on art in this book, but it's far from the investigative scrutiny and illuminating connections found in Tiepolo's Hound and operates on this level of exclusivity where if you know the style of the artist or painting in question you'll get his comparison and reference; if not, it has the power to distance the reader as it sounds like name-dropping and lofty elitism. I found it a cheap shortcut to really describe a scene in a fresh way.
Maybe one of these days I'll return to that thesis I wrote on his work and flesh out some of those essay chapters.
"the light / out of pearl, out of Pierro della Francesca / (you could tell he would mention a painter)"
Of course he continues to do it, and such self-poking didn't save the poem for me but deepened my sense of the project as the whimsical musings of a major poet at the end of his life, his twin brother dead, his romances failed, his former lovers and friends dead. It felt as if he were spinning his wheels.
And there was something about his acknowledgment that he missed the 20th century that struck a chord with me:
"In the middle of the nineteenth century
somewhere between Balzac and Lautreamont,
a little farther on than Baudelaire Station
where bead-eyed Verlaine sat, my train broke down,
and has been stuck there since. When I got off
I found that I had missed the Twentieth Century."
I'm coming at this from an odd angle, but his love for formal English prosody does continue through from the 19th century, almost as if he missed the Modernist revolution. I mean on one hand that sense of tradition, of writing back to the empire having mastered their language better than they speak it lends him great formal power, which I've always admired in his work as the rhyme schemes never seem forced or sing-songy thanks to the power of enjambment. And I never find the poems archaic; he is Modern, just look at the brilliant reinterpretation of Homer's work in Omeros. That sort of re-interpretation and re-presenting of our cultural inheritance in contemporary terms appeals to my imagination and makes me think of books like Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red. But I think his sense of Art with a big A is definitely a Romantic notion, especially when he makes comments like this in an interview: "There is no history in art...the criticism of art is historical, but art itself does not contain history." Come again?
His obsession with History vs. history has always intrigued me, and there's been a shift from addressing London and England as empire center to Paris and France in his last two books. It speaks to his mixed cultural legacy (St. Lucia, the Helen of the West Indies, exchanged hands between England and France again and again, so it makes sense he would write back to both). But where his preoccupation with England in his earlier work was to gain literary credibility, I find the shift to France an attempt to gain artistic credibility, especially with his identity as a painter. Just look at Tiepolo's Hound: it included 26 of his own paintings.
I would have thought the Art history, painter, ekphrastic lover in me would have appreciated his musings on art in this book, but it's far from the investigative scrutiny and illuminating connections found in Tiepolo's Hound and operates on this level of exclusivity where if you know the style of the artist or painting in question you'll get his comparison and reference; if not, it has the power to distance the reader as it sounds like name-dropping and lofty elitism. I found it a cheap shortcut to really describe a scene in a fresh way.
Maybe one of these days I'll return to that thesis I wrote on his work and flesh out some of those essay chapters.
October 1, 2023
I had mixed feelings with this one. The early chapters are like the most beautiful travel writing with dazzling descriptions of various places he visited during his life. The highlight for me was Zermatt - I wasn't familiar with the place but after reading the descriptions I looked it up and the image of the Matterhorn looming over the alpine town was perfect. This guy can write!
I lost faith a bit in the middle sections of the book since the writing gets a bit more complicated and I was a bit lost. The book jumps around a lot both in place and time, and if you don't understand all of the references or you don't know a lot about Derek Walcott's life then it's difficult. For example, it was only after I read part of a doctoral thesis about the book from the university of Estonia that I realised he had a twin brother who died earlier in his life.
I kept the faith and tried not to get too hung up on looking up all of the vocab/references and I'm glad I did. I found the final part of the book a bit easier to understand. Derek Walcott had complex feelings about his life as someone of mixed race, supremely successful but torn between the curiosity of travel and the pull of home. He seems quite troubled about the conflict between his European and Carribbean heritage, and he demonstrates such a high level of self awareness (surely a byproduct of a lifetime of contemplation that comes from a career in poetry) including one passage where he makes it abundantly clear that he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
The final chapter brings the book to a beautiful close with an elegiac description of dolphins and stars, addressing his twin. If you only want to "dip in" to this book then I'd recommend starting there, but there is such a complex density to this writing that "dipping in" feels quite offensive... This book deserves your time and I will come back to it I'm sure!
One final thought. He blatantly states in the book that this will be his last one. The fact that he evidently changed his mind by writing White Egrets is reassuring evidence that he might have made peace with some of the conflict described here because I remember that one being an extremely pleasant read (but not completely devoid of contemplations of death).
I lost faith a bit in the middle sections of the book since the writing gets a bit more complicated and I was a bit lost. The book jumps around a lot both in place and time, and if you don't understand all of the references or you don't know a lot about Derek Walcott's life then it's difficult. For example, it was only after I read part of a doctoral thesis about the book from the university of Estonia that I realised he had a twin brother who died earlier in his life.
I kept the faith and tried not to get too hung up on looking up all of the vocab/references and I'm glad I did. I found the final part of the book a bit easier to understand. Derek Walcott had complex feelings about his life as someone of mixed race, supremely successful but torn between the curiosity of travel and the pull of home. He seems quite troubled about the conflict between his European and Carribbean heritage, and he demonstrates such a high level of self awareness (surely a byproduct of a lifetime of contemplation that comes from a career in poetry) including one passage where he makes it abundantly clear that he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
The final chapter brings the book to a beautiful close with an elegiac description of dolphins and stars, addressing his twin. If you only want to "dip in" to this book then I'd recommend starting there, but there is such a complex density to this writing that "dipping in" feels quite offensive... This book deserves your time and I will come back to it I'm sure!
One final thought. He blatantly states in the book that this will be his last one. The fact that he evidently changed his mind by writing White Egrets is reassuring evidence that he might have made peace with some of the conflict described here because I remember that one being an extremely pleasant read (but not completely devoid of contemplations of death).
February 3, 2023
Derek Walcott's "The Prodigal" is one of the best verse novels I have ever read. It is highly poetic in essence and first and foremost a journey that the reader undertakes along the lines of the protagonist. Despite the somewhat misleading subtitle, it is an autobiographic story in verse that mirrors themes like ageing, love and travel. Would highly recommend.
Read
November 21, 2024p. 51
... the barber with the face of a boxer ... assessing you with the eyes of his scissors.
p. 66
love is as wide as the span of my open palm
p. 78
Hoard, cherish
your negligible existence, your unrecorded history
of unambitious syntax, your clean pools
of unpolluted light over close stones.
p. 86
Old man coming through the glass, who are you?
I am you. Learn to acknowledge me
...
do you think Time makes exceptions, do you think
Death mutters, "Maybe I'll skip this one?"
... the barber with the face of a boxer ... assessing you with the eyes of his scissors.
p. 66
love is as wide as the span of my open palm
p. 78
Hoard, cherish
your negligible existence, your unrecorded history
of unambitious syntax, your clean pools
of unpolluted light over close stones.
p. 86
Old man coming through the glass, who are you?
I am you. Learn to acknowledge me
...
do you think Time makes exceptions, do you think
Death mutters, "Maybe I'll skip this one?"
July 27, 2020
3.5 stars. Walcott's ever-impressive, wildly creative, dense language play is here, but the poem is personal and idiosyncratic enough that sometimes his musings become obscure to an outside audience, particularly in Part III.
Read
June 9, 2009In lieu of an actual review (because I really have mixed feelings about this book), here are some comments I sent a friend about the poem:
"I finished the Walcott - impressed only in parts. Perhaps I'm missing the point entirely and these flaws are all intentional and meaningful, but I found The Prodigal wandering and unfocused and at times even overwrought or redundant (you know how he piles metaphor upon metaphor upon metaphor, or perhaps he only does that in this book). Some of it was really precise though, and I was constantly surprised at his knack for imagery. Don't know if I recommend."
However, despite some negativity on my part, I do truly think that Walcott is an experienced and masterful writer, which is why I'm so mixed on this book and don't want to give a real review of it (that and I don't have time - but do I ever have time anymore?). His grasp of metaphor and simile is honestly amazing at times, even if he can get a little excessive in this poem and it can take some getting used to. Another thing that may take some adjusting on your part is his propensity for long, complex sentences that may demand rereading. That said, from what I've heard from others I don't think this is his best work and he did lose me with the (lack of) narrative a couple of times. The second half also seemed much stronger to me than the first; the first half was beautiful in sections but wasn't really going anywhere or meaning anything but rather was practically a travelogue in verse. Some themes that were interesting to me: reality as literature (before this got old... way old); conflict bw his local origins and cosmopolitan wanderings, History and history; age and time.
"I finished the Walcott - impressed only in parts. Perhaps I'm missing the point entirely and these flaws are all intentional and meaningful, but I found The Prodigal wandering and unfocused and at times even overwrought or redundant (you know how he piles metaphor upon metaphor upon metaphor, or perhaps he only does that in this book). Some of it was really precise though, and I was constantly surprised at his knack for imagery. Don't know if I recommend."
However, despite some negativity on my part, I do truly think that Walcott is an experienced and masterful writer, which is why I'm so mixed on this book and don't want to give a real review of it (that and I don't have time - but do I ever have time anymore?). His grasp of metaphor and simile is honestly amazing at times, even if he can get a little excessive in this poem and it can take some getting used to. Another thing that may take some adjusting on your part is his propensity for long, complex sentences that may demand rereading. That said, from what I've heard from others I don't think this is his best work and he did lose me with the (lack of) narrative a couple of times. The second half also seemed much stronger to me than the first; the first half was beautiful in sections but wasn't really going anywhere or meaning anything but rather was practically a travelogue in verse. Some themes that were interesting to me: reality as literature (before this got old... way old); conflict bw his local origins and cosmopolitan wanderings, History and history; age and time.
June 19, 2014
"The Prodigal" is a travelogue with a difference. Written in blank verse (bordering on free verse), Walcott's wanderings are viewed through a very personal lens that reveals less about the places per se, but more about his internal landscape as he moves forwards and backwards to review memories and experiences. In a sense it enriches the sense of place because he invests it with so much meaning and insight.
The poem is structured in 3 parts. From New York to the Swiss Alps to Milan, to Pescara in the first part, he travels to Latin America in the second part, moving ever closer to home, St Lucia in the Caribbean, which he returns to in the third part. Walcott lapses into third person at will, as if indicate the immediacy of moment-by-moment experience - the Walcott who experiences the scenery is not the Walcott who records it down in poetry as the experience is passed even as he writes it down on hindsight.
The trajectory of his journey may be unconscious, but like a true prodigal, the return to homeland is sweetened by his being away:
'This bedraggled backyard, this unfulfilled lot,
this little field of leaves, brittle and fallen,
of all the cities of the world, this is your centre.
Oh to be luminous and exact!' (p.84)
It is interesting to note that while a longing for home draws him ever closer to St Lucia, he nonetheless claims a universal sort of citizenship that is not bound by geography in the following lines:
'...and if they asked
what country I was from I'd say, "The light
of that tree-lined sunrise down the Via Veneto."' (p.29)
Home is also where he is.
The poem is structured in 3 parts. From New York to the Swiss Alps to Milan, to Pescara in the first part, he travels to Latin America in the second part, moving ever closer to home, St Lucia in the Caribbean, which he returns to in the third part. Walcott lapses into third person at will, as if indicate the immediacy of moment-by-moment experience - the Walcott who experiences the scenery is not the Walcott who records it down in poetry as the experience is passed even as he writes it down on hindsight.
The trajectory of his journey may be unconscious, but like a true prodigal, the return to homeland is sweetened by his being away:
'This bedraggled backyard, this unfulfilled lot,
this little field of leaves, brittle and fallen,
of all the cities of the world, this is your centre.
Oh to be luminous and exact!' (p.84)
It is interesting to note that while a longing for home draws him ever closer to St Lucia, he nonetheless claims a universal sort of citizenship that is not bound by geography in the following lines:
'...and if they asked
what country I was from I'd say, "The light
of that tree-lined sunrise down the Via Veneto."' (p.29)
Home is also where he is.
July 7, 2010
Currently reading and now read it. The narrator runs through Europe
particularly Italy, also the Carribean Island of St.Lucia. I not big
on narrative poems that run the whole book. If this interests you fine
but really not for me.
Some good vocabulary, I might have learned some new words-- that's it.
particularly Italy, also the Carribean Island of St.Lucia. I not big
on narrative poems that run the whole book. If this interests you fine
but really not for me.
Some good vocabulary, I might have learned some new words-- that's it.
June 24, 2012
A wonderful poem, and I read it at the perfect time (whilst on holiday). The vivid images of the world coupled with the reflective-ness of being on holiday was captured wonderfully in the poem and I am definitely going to go back to it soon to study it more.
September 25, 2013
Walcott has been a revelation for me. While I agree with some other reviewers that he can be a bit self-indulgent, there are so many gems in this work that the navel-gazing didn't get in the way for me. What a master!
May 21, 2013
A fascinating long poem that subtly explores Walcott's sense of the place and its relationship to the craft of writing
March 27, 2017
This is one of the best things I've ever read <3
Read
April 1, 2017"... so an adopted city slides into me,
till my gestures echo those of its citizens,
and my shoes that glide over a sidewalk grating
move without fear of falling, move as if rooted,
in the meter of memory..."
Started reading it on a train, and finished reading it under the rain. As it should be.
till my gestures echo those of its citizens,
and my shoes that glide over a sidewalk grating
move without fear of falling, move as if rooted,
in the meter of memory..."
Started reading it on a train, and finished reading it under the rain. As it should be.
November 2, 2017
I Don't think I am very good at reading, understanding and appreciating poetry.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews