Tiepolo's Hound

by Derek Walcott

From the Nobel laureate, a "resplently luminous" (Paul Gray, Time ) book-length poem on two educations in painting, a century apart.Between me and Venice the thigh of a hound;my awe of the ordinary, because even as I write,paused on a step of this couplet, I have never foundits image again, a hound in astounding light.Tiepolo's Hound joins the quests of two Caribbean men. Camille Pissarro, born in 1830, leaves his native St. Thomas to follow his vocation as a painter in Paris. The poet himself hunts for a detail -- "a slash of pink on the inner thigh/of a white hound" -- of a Venetian painting encountered on an early visit from St. Lucia to New York. Both journeys take us through a Europe of the mind's eye, in search of a connection between the lost, actual landscape of a childhood and the mythical landscape of empire. Published with twenty-six of Derek Walcott's own paintings, the poem is at once the spiritual biography of a great artist in self-exile, a history in verse of Impressionist painting, and a memoir of the poet's desire to catch the visual world in more than words.

Genres: Poetry, Art

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Derek 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.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walcott takes the reader on an adventure to find Tiepolo's Hound. Every page is filled with Walcott's visual and poetic art, and you are catapulted into the stories of Tiepolo and the world that he created through his paint brush.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging but worth the effort.

[Rani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Omigod. This is simply beautiful and beautifully simple! I keep reading and reading this, and have this book always ready next to my bed.

[andré crombie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vernacular shallows muttered under bridges
on whose banks cane lances fluttered as the sail

of a wading egret rose towards the ridges
of mountain ferns until the roof grew small.

[Daisybirch · Rating 3 out of 5]

To quote Woolf, ‘Is there really any sense in it? I admit I can’t be bothered to snuff out his meaning when it’s very obscure.’ Perhaps I’ll give it another go, or know to devote more time and attention to his other work.

[Nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Walcott is a true poetic artist. I was moved by this brilliant epic poem.

[Dann Zinke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book was only 164 pages. Not as gripping as Omeros, but some of the poetic imagery was superb, as you would expect from Walcott.

[Zubyre Parvez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classical painting explored from the point of view of being mixed race (of Greek and Jamaican origins) a true individual, with wit and brilliance.

[Albert]

The paintings give a nice insight into his engagement with that perspective. Check out videos of him reading. He has a great sense of humor that doesn't really come across in his work.

[Restaurant Junkie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't lie; this one wasn't easy to get through. Yet, I did pick it up for a bit of a challenge, and I'm happier for the journey. This poetry uses words as both the paintbrush and the paint. I often found myself looking up unfamiliar words, which I don't frequently do. This is a language-laden love letter (and the paintings are good, too).

I started reading it, attempting to grasp the threads and follow the narrative. When I couldn't, I took them in as tiny, independent couplet jewels and was still entertained.

This is a book I could see myself just picking up and reading random lines for inspiration.

[Matthew Mann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dereck Walcott is magic!

[Lew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I parodied this in my novel Uncorrected Proof (see http://elephantearspress.com/uncorrec... )

[Lex Poot · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the tradition of Walt Whitman writes Derek Walcott