Derek Walcott
West Indian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who writes mainly in English.
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Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures; it is not inhibited by flourish; it is a rhetorical society; it is a society of physical performance; it is a society of style.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
I try to forget what happiness was,
and when that don't work, I study the stars.
No masterpieces in huge frames to worship,
… and yet there are the days
when every street corner rounds itself into
a sunlit surprise, a painting or a phrase,
canoes drawn up by the market, the harbour’s blue,
the barracks. So much to do still, all of it praise.
The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.
Any serious attempt to try to do something worthwhile is ritualistic.
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