LITR / CRCL 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Poetry Presentation, 2003

"The Gulf" by Derek Walcott

Leader:  Kelley Gutridge
Respondent:  Natalie
Recorder:  Ginger

I would like to start the presentation by using a quote about Walcott explaining his views since we haven't started the book Robinson Crusoe.

"Rather than a wanderer who eventually returns, Walcott has revisioned Crusoe as a castaway.  Being cast-away, for Walcott, results from racial discrimination and hatred and has as its corollaries the schism between the industrialized North America and the Caribbean, between the metropolitan and the provincial, between English and the lost origins, between the New World and the old, and within the divide of the Atlantic." 

I would like to define Gulf:  1. A large area of an ocean or sea partially enclosed by land; 2.  A chasm; abyss; and 3.  A separation: gap.

Read excerpts from the poem.

Thought-provokers from the poem to explain a bigger picture about what Walcott is experiencing:

·         In this section, there is a heavy airplane (mechanical) imagery with use of verbs and adjectives. 

·         Divine union the soul detaches itself from created things. 

·         Memory penetrates--thinking of distance. 

·         We learn, exchanging the least gifts, this rose, this napkin, that those we love are objects we return 

There seems to be feelings of separation or isolation throughout this passage.  Is this worth the pain or is it joy?  Where does he belong because he is torn between two worlds.  Point out MLK and JFK reference and how civil rights/segregation plays into poem.  This image won't go away.

II

·         More on Nature imagery

·         Crusoe allusion--which I will read passages later for further knowledge and explain  the Elizabeth reference.  The face of the loved object under glass is plainer still.

·         Death/rebirth image  War/cloud-bound mummy with self-healing scars again looks new

·         Detached divided states/ bursting ghettos cloud the glass--hazy image

·         Back to mechanical imagery for only the last three lines--Newark to New Orleans has crude (gasoline) pipelines.

III

·         New Orleans imagery.  South felt like home.  Is this the world he fits into?  Tidal drawl, tropic air, slow, legendary jazz (art form)

·         Memories

·         But:  The Gulf, your gulf, is daily widening.

·         Tension and violence (racial discrimination and hatred)

·         Black panthers/ Malcolm X reference.

IV

·         The coast of Texas glints like a metal rim

·         I have no home

·         The uninstructing dead...

"For both Walcott and Bishop, addressing the figure of Crusoe entails engaging in a multilayered critique of the idea of self and other, a critique of one's personal identity, and a critique of one's position within a culture.  Separate but also inseparable."

"Writing on Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Lennard Davis has argued, novels and countries function similarly:  'to claim space and turn them into systems of meaning.'  Thus, the project that Defoe's fiction initiated is the ideological remapping of the New World as a colonial domain".

"The title poem of The Gulf (1970), however, a meditation on racial violence, signified the appearance of a tougher, less stately diction.  Nevertheless, Walcott retained his sense of the complexity of his themes:  'The romanticized, pastoral vision of Africa that many black people hold can be an escape from the reality around us.  In the West Indies, where all races live and work together, we have the beginnings of a great and unique society.  The problem is to recognize our African origins but not to romanticize them.'"

"The Castaway (1965) and The Gulf (1970) reveal in their titles Walcott's feelings of alienation as he tries to balance his European cultural orientation with the black and Creole folk cultures of his native Caribbean."

Walcott forms a connected feeling with the (U.S.) South and the Caribbean, but has a hard time with the racial discrimination and hatred.  We, as the reader, see him struggling to form a solid bond--so what does the title of the poem, "The Gulf," mean to Walcott in relation to what is happening during postcolonial literature?

Natalie's comments: 

·         From the Intro to Robinson Crusoe by John Man:

"Authors now constantly search for settings that allow conflict and character to emerge in raw simplicity.  The struggle for survival is the most fundamental of human stories..."

·         For Walcott: 

the struggle for "survival"

the "inner conflict"

the "isolation"/otherness

the "Gulf"

All these terms represent the separateness he is experiencing. 

·         The otherness that he feels is from his mother culture. 

·         I liked the combination of mechanical/nature.

·         It seems the closer he gets to the place that seems like home the further he reallly is.

White: Creolization or mixing of cultures in the Caribbean rather than the South. Difference in terms of race relations: In Caribbean - white minority/black majority; in South - white majority/black minority. But South had a strictness. In theory there was a separation. But in Caribbean, whites moved back and then there was a culture - a Creole or blended culture. When he says "The Gulf," that's one application.

Natalie: From the introductory part, authors search for settings and the struggle for survival. That's the key. The Gulf represents the separateness from his mother culture. For anyone, it's a separateness or isolation. For Walcott, it's inner survival.

Kelley: They didn't question things. No violence. Here there's a mixture too but we still have civil rights issues and in the Caribbean they didn't.

White: New Orleans is the closest identity we have for Creoles - a legitimate identity in New Orleans - a stepping stone between South and the Caribbean.

Kelley: The Gulf is a big body of water. I was trying to envision his route. He circled Love Field, but did he land there?

White: Sounds like he is leaving Love Field.

Kelley: I like the imagery of JFK and Oswald as predator.

White: It wasn't that long ago he wrote it. 1969 or a few years before. King was assassinated in 1968.

Kelley: There's reference to MLK "brown limbs, object, conjure hotels" - he saw and wrote about lots of racial hatred in this poem.

White: Irony of Love Field.

Natalie: Going back to the question what does the title mean, people who write feel the separateness but #4 says he's disillusioned. The tone in the last canto is one of complete disillusion or he doesn't know what to do with that. Where do we go now? I'm getting this same arena of tone from postcolonial literature authors.

White: In Things Fall Apart, the last page of the poem - apocalyptic imagery. Can we connect the two? How does the instability lead to that apocalyptic atmosphere? Section 3 - Your gulf is daily widening is like Things Fall Apart and the line "my status is a secondary soul" seems to have a little more of a middle ground to move so that a neither/nor identity is more assumed in the United States.

Charlie: Line with fear thick in my voice - he had a more relaxed curl and could fit in, but here in U.S. it curled up and everybody knew his identity.

Kim: The Gulf  - YOUR Gulf not mine - he referred to race earlier. One rose is the honor or tribute but he refers to it as innocence. Continues with JFK's death and loss of promise.

White: Apocalypse moon becomes blood red. You could see Second Coming - animal stalking and other images. End of Section 3 - moonless panthers.

Kim: Beast reference.

White: Beast from Revelations. When I first read the poem, I was unsure about its tone. It seemed almost humorous "Island suburb" "Love Field" - almost playful.

Natalie: As he's getting closer to home, what seems like home isn't home at all. He gets angry. Like the meek shall inherit the earth.

Kristy: I read it as a warning. The Civil Rights issues are from both sides alluding to Black Panthers and JFK. He is frustrated with how both sides in America were going about it. The violence.