Her-Story

“Fisherman and peasant know who they are and what they are and where they are, and when we show them our wounded sensibilities we are, most of us, displaying self-inflicted wounds (63).”[1]

When the idea of this blog was born, it was meant to be about Walcott, and then it evolved to be about Walcott and dialogic discourse, and then about naming and History and his-story. And it is true that it also has been largely about by my own “self-inflicted” wounds.

Has this blog been academic? Sometimes. In my writing, has Walcott’s work been oversimplified? Broken up into themes? Has it been reduced to absurdity? Maybe. But has it been personal? I hope so.

Because if there is anything I’ve learned from my study of Walcott’s oeuvre, it’s that each name is one’s own, that meaning-making is intimate, and that twilight often speaks in a whisper just loud enough for one person to hear.

A sea-eagle screams from the rock,
And my race began like the osprey
With that cry,
That terrible vowel,
That I! (33)

--Derek Walcott, Names[2]

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[1] Walcott, Derek. What the Twilight Says. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1998.

[2] ---. Sea Grapes. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1971.