reading from Walcott: from Midsummer, XXVII (pp. 486-87)

reader: Andrea Winters
respondent: Verena Ollikkala
recorder: Sandra Yowell
Monday, 11 June 2001

Walcott is expressing the conflict he has between the old and the new St. Thomas. He has a struggle between two worlds, the old nature and the new industry. We see this as we examine his poem.

The poem opens with an image of a chain-linked fence that separates an empty ballpark and the beach. This describes the loss of a national game. The class discussed weather this is a baseball park or a criquette park. If Walcott is indeed expressing the loss of the past, we determined this then would be a criquette park. It was only after America’s colonization did the Caribbean began to play baseball. Nature is trying to emerge in the next few lines that describe a pelican coasting over a sea that reflects the sun set. However, nature is ruined by the cold and, assumed untouched, surface of the sea. He continues by describing sewers, or cessnas, by an airstrip and the night having a "rank smell". He continues to express his point of disseminating nature with line "Bulldozers jerk and gouge out a hill, but we know that the dust is industrial and must be suffered." The next few lines also create a vivid image that further paints the picture of the disappearing nature and abundant presents of industry. This is evident with just a few words such as, corrugations, zinc, soldered and acetylene. He continues to look for the ways of old and he sees stars in the san and the American flag at the post office. He leaves us with the idea that loyalty is changing as quickly as the waves erode sand under his feet. However, we are unsure of whose loyalty. As seen on line 4, "…muttering the word umpire instead of empire…" gives the audience the impression that he may be in favor of this change. However, the end of the poem states, "… the fealty changing under my foot." can give the audience that he has no control over the change and he may just go with it because he has no other choice.

Question: The entire poem seems to state oppression of the ways of old, then why the line, umpire instead of empire? Does this seem to give the idea of a welcomed oppression?

Kasi: The speaker seems to be feeling the change of loyalty because of the line "My own corpuscles are changing as fast" He may indeed like the St. Thomas of old but all of the new economy as we know can from this industry that America introduced.

Andrea: But is it changing because he wants it too or is it just changing?

Kasi: The sand is an image of shifting.

Kim: There is a sense of anguish, liminality, and constant torture. He is caught in between two worlds.

Sylvia: There’s a resigned attitude. The conflicts between what you take and what you lose ion the exchange in the dialog.

Dr. White: Problematic. You inhabit the problem. The idea of post colonialism is that you never escape it.

Brenda: The (colonial) encroachment has melted into society. I.e.: McDonald’s, Tommy Hilfiger, the brand everyone wears. It is a brand for American tastes. These are evidences of colonialism.

Verena: He’s divided; it’s a combination of homesickness and his life in Boston. The game it criquette not baseball.

Brenda: St. Thomas is American Virgin Islands. It can be seen both ways. Its called criquette grounds not a park.

Verena: the Villas are fenced off the locals belong there. Walcott is a U.S. citizen but he’s a native of this land. He is shifting. He’s questioning himself as in line 22 the rains remind him of the American flag like at the post office.

Sugonthi: It’s a native tongue on which he’s speaking. Line 22 he feels strongly about pollution and that is the American rain. It is acid rain. This is torturing him line 23 he is actually polluted.

Linton: "Cold as Main, rank small, gouge out hill, bulldoze, jerk, " these are violent images.

Dr. White: "corrugations" is a metallic image. This is post modernism. No nature emerges. This emerges with post colonialism. Line 9-10 a sense of a world untouched by Americans. Images converge nature and industrialization.

Brenda: Walcott is showing how they are taking over a natural way of life. That is why there is so much of it.

Andrea: Final thought to focus on the struggle of nature and industry and this parallels the struggle within Walcott.

Dr. White: That’s Walcott’s style.