 Happy Nobel Laureate Day, St. Lucia, celebrating excellence, inspiring our collective imagination and fostering national pride. We are live from the Finance Administrative Centre in Castries for the Sir Derek Walcott Memorial Lecture, the latest event of the 2023 Nobel Laureate Festival. My name is Jesse Layance, as you've heard. This Nobel Laureate Festival event is being executed by the Cultural Development Foundation and sponsored by the Labry Cooperative Credit Union. At this time, I would like to acknowledge the presence of a few persons, His Excellency Errol Charles, acting Governor-General of St. Lucia, former G.G. at Damperlett-Louisey, Government Ministers present, PSS and other public service officials, CDF Board of Directors and I see the Boss Lady, E.D. Ramona Henry-Winn, goodnight to you. Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassador Chen, Ambassador Life Escalona, Her Excellency Life Escalona, goodnight to you. We also want to make special mention of representatives from statutory organizations, especially invited guests, media partners, welcome to you all. In this latest installment of the Sir Derek Walcott Memorial Lecture, we will hear from A Son of the Soil, an award-winning poet, playwright, director, actor, cultural critic. The list goes on and on, but first, I want to welcome an author. We want to feature an author. She published a text in 2022 and it's called Sweet Pain by Cheryl Rosemond. This excerpt that she will be reading is hoped to inspire you, ready you, give you a taste before we get to the main course for this evening. Her book is, quote, an epic of intentional adventures that overpowered a life that was destined for suffering. Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to welcome Miss Cheryl Rosemond to warm you up tonight. Good evening to everyone. I greet you all with a very warm embrace, Lucian style. And I only have very limited time, so I am going to just begin by saying that, you know, whatever, it doesn't matter how simple our life is, there's always something or so much that we can celebrate about our simple life right here in St. Lucia. And this is what this book is all about. So I'm going to just jump right into it and just share because it's about my life, my experience. I was an adopted child and I know there are many young people, you know, moping around about their domestic life, their social life and all different aspects. They have a lot of pain because people are not, you know, caring and extending themselves. So I will just share a little bit. In those days, the simplest things in life brought joy and served as a form of entertainment. Full moon or new moon would be quickly noticed by the shiny vegetation around the houses. Often, adult and children would assemble at the junction just because it was a bright night. For the children, it was always fun, a joyous time, a nice excuse to run and play some more before going to bed. The sky was where we got our toys from on such nights, first the bright shiny moon, which we believed moved along with us in whatever direction we went. This moving game, which included walking or running forward or backward with heads upwards and eyes fixed on the moon, saw many falling and bumping into each other. Then there was counting of the stars in the sky. The sky would be beautifully decorated with countless bright stars. No one could get the same figure when counting the clusters of stars. The third game always captured the interest of the adults, finding the best description for the shapes of the clouds. These outings took place any night of the week and were very refreshing and relaxing. After school, it was a common practice for a few of us little girls in the neighborhood to go visit a cute old lady, affectionately known as Majiji. These visits were always fun. She lived in a pink wooden house. I don't ever recall that house being painted in another color. It was well maintained by her family. Inside was decorated with flowers, ornaments and lots of photos of her children and grandchildren. And of course, her attractive self. She was very attractive in her younger days. On every visit, she would gather us close to her. And the visits always started with pictures. Every day, we would be reminded. See with your hands and touch with your eyes. She sat at her roadside window at her dining table on afternoons. She would ask us about school and would encourage us to do well because education is important. Her English vocab was very limited. She always left us in giggles and smiles as she would say such things as learn your ABCs, learn them well so that when you grow up, you will be a gentle lady and would recite the alphabet forward and backward and ask us to say it like her. This we were subjected to on every single visit. We always had to tell Majiji who or whose we will. She could never remember. On the days we wanted to keep our visit short so we could go out on the road to play, we would play tricks on her. One of us would go outside or never come in and while she was telling a story, another would be called with an altered voice. Whoever is called must answer with a shout, yes mama I come in. And this is how we began to excuse ourselves as the one who runs out returns to say to another at close range that her mother asked her to come right now. By this we thought ourselves we were so clever and giggled about it. Majiji moved on from this life while we were still very young. So it seemed very simple but it was a fun experience. There are many children who never had little days like that. Many children are being raped. Many children are being sexually abused. Many children are being abandoned whilst a few of us get to have those little moments and this book captures a lot of those little moments that I had when I was growing up along with others who were as fortunate as I was. And so I want to encourage you to participate in the sale of the book. The book can be found on Amazon but more than that it's not about money for me but it's about serving people to just reflect on their lives, be excited about what their experience in life was able to bring to them. Thank you so much. Wonderful. I'm glad that with Elation she was able to see herself, greet herself, arriving at her own door in her own mirror smiling at her welcome. Part of the feast is essentially laying bare our lives and sharing to inspire others. So thank you very much Ms. Cheryl Rosemond and I said Cheryl Rosemond but we can see if we could go back to the screen that on the book cover it says Sherry Bruno. So when you go on to Amazon to add the text to your cart later this evening you can just type in the search engine Sherry Bruno and you will get it. Thank you very much once again. What the twilight keeps saying following the gaze of Derek Walcott. You will be hearing from guest speaker Dr. Travis Weeks this evening and I invite you now to take a look at this featured video providing a very special introduction. You know we're in the new age I don't have to do these things anymore, a very special introduction of Dr. Weeks, his accomplishments and his impact. Dr. Travis Weeks is an award-winning St. Lucian poet, playwright and director. He is also an actor and cultural critic. He studied literature at the University of West Indies Mona and theatre at the Jamaica School of Drama and Cultural Studies at the Cable Campus of UWI. As a researcher and a dramatist Dr. Weeks focuses on the indigenous traditions and discourse in the theatre of Nobel Prize winning playwright Derek Walcott. He also uses this research to develop innovative dramaturgical approaches to his own theatre practice both as a playwright and the director. Indeed he has written several plays and scripted the production Jazz Country which was staged as part of St. Lucian's presentation to Carrie Fester 2013 in Suriname. His play The Field of Power was staged to mark the celebrations of Nobel Laureate Week in St. Lucia 2015. Another of his plays The Fight for Bellevue has been translated into French Pryol which he has also directed for a stage reading in Martinique. Dr. Weeks has worked as the cultural education officer of the Faux Research Centre in St. Lucia, lecturer in French lexicon Quayol at Cable UWI and lecturer in Caribbean Studies and Theatre Arts at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St. Lucia. He has also lectured extensively on St. Lucian and Caribbean culture both in and out of the region. He is currently employed as the theatre coordinator and lecturer in theatre at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts of the University of the West Indies St. Augustine. Last year he directed a film adaptation of his play The Fight for Bellevue with his student actors. In 2022 he staged his most recent play Menemue Monripou with the Children of Helen Alliance at the Wellington Library in Florida USA. This year 2024 Dr. Weeks has directed the play entitled Sunday with the Warlord by Daward Phillips based on the life of the Calypsoanian Lord Blakey. This play will be staged at the Napa Rima Bowl San Fernando Trinidad on February 4th. Dr. Weeks is also in the process of directing Derek Walcott's The Joker of Seville scheduled to open at the Central Bank auditorium on April 19th in Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Weeks publication include two plays The Fight for Bellevue and The Field of Power. Bodies, Memories and Spirits discourse on selected cultural forms and practices in St. Lucia and the collection of poems entitled Let There Be Jazz. Ladies and gentlemen Dr. Travis Weeks thank you thank you thank you so many of my elders here so many of my teachers I really should just sit down and try to learn some more yeah it's really good to see so many friends well-wishers and teachers in particular I learned so much over so many years I'm getting old and I hope this is knowledge you're seeing that right there all right thanks um let's dive into it what the twilight keeps saying following the guise of Derek Walcott the essay what the twilight says prefaces Walcott's first collection of plays Jim on Monkey Mountain and other plays in the essay Walcott it appears reflects upon his work as an artist in the Caribbean and speak to his engagement with the politics of culture and blackness in Caribbean society he had co-founded the St. Lucia Arts Guild in 1950 one of the first plays performed by the guild was Henri Christophe based on the Haitian Revolution in 1958 he wrote and directed Drums and Colors for the opening session of the West Indies Federation and in 1959 he co-founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop the play Jim on Monkey Mountain which chronicles a black man's journey to self-realization was first performed in Canada in 1967 intense protests began among black students in 1968 at a conference held at George Williams University in Canada what the twilight says was published in 1970 quite a significant year as it was the year of the black power revolution in Trinidad and Tobago the point of this timeline here is that Walcott was at the cusp of the rise in cultural and political consciousness among Caribbean blacks that took place in the 1960s for this reason the essay what the twilight says provides extremely useful insight into the poet's outlook on the cultural politics of the period and even more importantly it may throw light on our dark fumbling with some of the serious social issues currently affecting Caribbean communities the essay is a political missive though and thus before we actually get to it I would like you to join me as I follow the gaze of Walcott the poet and painter and his symbolism of the twilight Walcott begins his lengthy autobiographical poem Another Life by capturing the twilight on the Vigie Peninsula a historical landmark just of the city of castries St. Lucia he uses the twilight not only to highlight the decline of the British Empire but also to project at once a vision for decolonization twilight that time of day when the sun appears to descend and conversely the moon begins its ascent captured the poet's imagination as a transience that can signify the attainment of our goal and gold as the sun tired of empire declines it throws a golden light in the sky and on the land presenting a golden opportunity for colonized blacks to see themselves in a new light the poet painter embraces that calls the Vigie Peninsula has been a strategic location for the British in protecting their interest during the rival colonial wars for the Caribbean the landscape here is covered by all soldiers barracks Walcott picks up picks out particular images captured in twilight at Vigie as recalls a very significant part of the history of the island when it was a major cooling station the peninsula outlines one part of the harbor where in the late 19th and earlier part of the 20th centuries ships from all over came to dock for replenishments of coal the cooling industry was run by the british and the beast of burden were black women who walked up planks carrying baskets of coal on their heads to offload into the waiting ships this was no doubt strenuous and degrading work but as we follow the walker gaze we see that that twilight captures not degradation but instead selects the strength and beauty of those black female coal carriers Walcott also uses images of the seascape to symbolize the artist's responsibility in the psychical decolonization process as the young poet gazes over the harbor his mission and the trajectory of his work would be to accomplish a counter colonial discourse until this oceans a shut book and like a bulb the white moons filaments wane the imagery is strong white moons filaments wane with european colonization as the white empire of the british declines the time came for a new book a story of the strength and beauty of the island and its people caught now in gilded frame by the twilight it is important to place the young poet's vision into some historical context in order to fully appreciate the strength and power of his ambition not only for himself but also for his people walker was born in the year 1930 on the brink of the second world war and smacked in the middle of the great depression in the usa the 1930s also marked intense labor upheavals in the caribbean caused in part by the spread of gaviism marcus gavi was back in jamaica having been deported from the usa and was establishing unia centers throughout the caribbean st lusia included caribbean blacks were demanding better wages better working conditions and the right to participate more fully in the governance of their territories subsequently the moine commission a project launched by the british to investigate the social and economic conditions in the caribbean confirmed the horrible living and working conditions of the large number of working class people in the region by the time world war two ended in 1945 walker could have been 15 near in the end of his secondary education at san mary's college also by this time sarpholis was 15 years older would have been an assistant master at the london school of economics the first black man to be part of the faculty he was a developmental economist and the focus of his research was on how to best utilize the labor in the west indies for the economic development of the region king sugar had been on the decline for some time and in st lusia the estates were being abandoned and hundreds of people had flocked to the city of castries in search of work the calling industry in castries spanned the period of the late 19th century and the earlier part of the 20th century the calling industry was a british investment run by peter and company limited there was work on the wall the boy walker would be spending time with his mentor harry simons at his studio on barnard hill harry would have been would have exposed him to the best painters of the european renaissance period and beyond in his sorjons around that part of castries walker would have witnessed the women cool carriers carrying baskets of coal up the plank to be deposited onto into the ships you'd have witnessed the masquerade performers from many of the steve doors who had come to settling communities around the city to work you'd have witnessed the war frats as they were called diving competitively competitively sorry for coins into the water at cornery the blackened the coal carriers and the masqueraders would be significant drivers of inspiration european colonization had created a society that was rigidly stratified along lines of race color and class whites from the french and british ancestry along with the expatriates of european origin occupied the top of the social scale followed in descending order by mulatto's browns and in blacks the formerly enslaved at the bottom walker's parents were educated mulatto's and he therefore fell one or one below below sorry the apex of the social structure he has written that both his grandfathers were white and both his grandmothers were black yet despite his birth into that upper strata society factors such as the involvement of his family in the arts and the influence of his mentor harry simons brought walker into constant engagement with the cultural practices of the ordinary folk consequently he was pulled by a commitment to what seems like two separate cultural spaces one black and the other white the writer drew from the cultural material of both spaces and attempts a reconciliation of the racial division within and without though his long career as a writer dedicated to a resolution of his own internal racial conflict walker to provide a mirror to the deep lingering wound affecting the formerly enslaved he has been brutally honest in showing that the consequence of colonization among the formerly colonized was the deeply ingrained ingrained hatred for their own color in another life walker would offer a poetic discourse to imagine the ordinary black solution emerging from that debilitating colonial experience described above into a golden light that prizes him or her into a figure of strength and beauty in omaris 20 years later he would continue to imagine a healing of the wound of self hatred necessary for the self-actualization of caribbean blacks i will follow walker's gaze in between the publication of these two texts to illustrate the consistency in what the twilight says what the twilight keeps saying as he begins another life the poet's depiction of the startling twilight provided a symbolism for his mission of psychological decolonization and i'm quoting from another life begin with twilight when a glare which held a cry of boggles lowered the coconut lances of the inlet as the sun tired of empire declined it mesmerized like fire without wind and as its amber climbed the barestain ovals of the british fort above the promontory the sky grew drunk with light twilight here seems a celebration of the poet's coming of age the sky grew drunk with light he and his fellow painter dunstan centurma were drunk with light as he celebrated as they heralded this defining moment of decolonization it was their time there was your heaven the clear glaze of another life a landscape locked in amber the red gleam the dream of reason had produced its monster a prodigy of the wrong age and color what was the heaven the ethereal beauty in that moment of transience between the light and the dark that would hold the painter's gaze the realization that the most profound satisfaction would come from an elevation of his island and people to that golden height the dream of reason was the title of one from a series of paintings by spanish painter francisco goya however whereas goya was critical of the widespread political and religious abuses of the time period in this particular painting he depicts himself falling asleep and then experiencing nightmares of devils walcott's reference to goya's dream of reason perhaps betrays an awareness of the horrendous but enticing responsibility that he was beginning to embrace he was going through his own period of enlightenment but his imagination was boundless he presents himself here as a prodigy of the wrong age and color the fact that the poet the young poet saw himself as being of the wrong age and color is significant because it speaks to his identity how he saw himself he was of the wrong age he and his pairs was starting their own renaissance not in the middle ages but in the 20th century not in europe but in a small british colony in the caribbean he was of the wrong color mark his identity if i may echo a line from bomali he identified himself not with those of light skin privilege but with the ordinary black folk on the island that's from very early the poet embraced a mission of decolonization his gaze became transfixed upon the transience of twilight as signifying the turn of an epoch in this twilight he envisioned the elevation of his people as a young painter in the studio of harry simons studying a method to paint the landscape his gaze fell on the light and he waited for the tidal amber glare to glaze the last sharks of the morn till they became a sequential fragrant sorry a sequential fragment in guilt frame he wanted his landscape and his people in guilt frame glt gilded thus the process of studying the light on the landscape to gain accuracy resulted in a clarity of poetic vision it is such a vision that sustained his motivation this restoration was necessary to counter the feelings of inadequacy wrought by white supremacy the cry seems profound and spontaneous and he wrote oh mirror we're a generation yearned for whiteness for condor unreturned we're a generation yearned for whiteness for condor unreturned colonization dealt a serious wound not only were we made to hit our race color and culture but we longed to become like our very own slavers i do not know to what extent generations could understand that wound current generations that is can understand that wound that yearning for whiteness although i came of age fortunately after the work of marcus garvey malchamex martin lucer king etc and during the expansion of raster for i i saw people around me from whom i received the impression that they yearned for whiteness this was that generation born in the earlier part of the 1900s before the decolonization and independence movement had taken root welcome to recognition of self hatred as the most debilitating condition of colonization was expressed quite earnestly by other caribbean intellectuals before him among which are marcus garvey and franz for now as a preacher garvey advocated for black theology that reinterpreted the bible represented important prophets and saints as black his theology suggested that if we were made in the image and likeness of god then it was not necessary for us to worship white representations as god should be black garvey of course recognized the psychological wound done by the imposition of white religious symbols upon the colonized phonon speaks clearly to the sense of inferiority fed felt sorry by the black man as a result of the colonial experience as manifested in actions suggesting a yearning for whiteness this against this background that we study the walker gays the young poet zoom on the landscape on the seascape around the castles harbor a twilight would crystallize his vision for encapsulating the wholeness of his people that time of day dusk stimulated a mode of inspiration for the poet and painter in one this sense of wholeness however could only be achieved by a full acceptance and restoration of that degraded part of his ancestry the lineage of his grandmothers his african roots this personal agenda fired the development of a conscious and deliberate discursive trajectory of artistic restoration of pride in the indigenous as represented in the main by blackness as one follows the walker gays one sees with him the struggles of kaibyan blacks but one sees as well the focus of his lens on the grace strength of the folk the fisherman the peasant in an early poem the harbor walker captures fishermen in the twilight rowing homeward in this poem it is clear that the stature and movement of the fisherman rowing home provide a source of inspiration for the poet he compares his own journey as an artist to that of the fishermen braving perilous waters here is what he writes the fishermen rowing homeward in the dusk do not consider the stillness through which they move so i since feelings drown should no more ask for the safe twilight which your calm hands give the fishermen seem unconscious though of the grace of their moving arms as they work their way home it is the poet's gaze that captures that grace in the dusk because the scene mirrors his own aspirations as an emerging artist then he hopes that the gaze upon him would see in him as well a similarity of movement he writes yet others who watch my progress outward on a sea which is cooler than any word of love may see in me the calm my passage makes braving new water the poet's admiration for the bravery and courage in fishermen would find expression again in the character of affa in the sea at dofe we follow his gaze to meet the fishermen affa gasia and agostine affa is the hard-hearted rebel who blasphemes revolts against the church and curses the priest according them some responsibility for the poverty of the people affa explains the reason for his bravery affa says this brave i have it come from many years many years of sea many years of do law that crack my face and make my heart so hard the poet's early identification with the strongest of those fishermen also reveal another aspect of how he shaped his character how he embraced a particular stoicism that would drive an independent mindset how you develop an unflinching commitment to his own perfection as an artist and to demanding the same of those who worked with him his gaze upon affa becomes his reflection this characterization and identification with the power of fishermen provide an indication of the identity of the poet he saw himself in the fishermen he took the bravery so to speak the courage to venture out into the perilous ocean every morning this can be likened to the project that you'd set himself waking up early in the morning to prepare shape his craft to navigate his journey into the vast world of literature with utmost strength and confidence walcott's craft did take him out into the vast world outside of the caribbean the collection of poems the arkans or testament is walcott's first publication after several years of living and working at boston university in the united states quite likely in that setting he must have become even more fully aware of his own racial and cultural identity following the poet's gaze in one of the poems in this collection entitled the light of the world we see several individuals journeying on a bus from castries to grusely the time of day's dusk and walcott's persona is waiting for the bus to be filled as marley was rocking on the transport stereo the light of the world marley was rocking on the transport stereo and the beauty was humming the choruses quietly i could see where the lights on the planes of a cheek streaked and defined them if this were a portrait you'd leave the highlights for last these lights silkened her black skin i'd have put in an airing something simple in good gold for contrast but she wore no jewelry i imagined the powerful and sweet odor coming from her as from a still panther and the head was nothing else but heraldic when she looked at me then away from me politely because any steering at strangers is impolite it was like a statue like a black delacoise liberty leading the people the gently bulging whites of her eyes the carved ebony mouth the heft of the torso solid and a woman's but gradually even that was going in the dusk except the line of a profile and the highly cheek and i thought oh beauty you are the light of the world it was not the only time i would think of that phrase in the 16-seater transport that hummed between grozily and the market with his grit of charcoal and the litter of vegetables after saturday sales and the roaring rum shops outside whose bright doors you saw drunk women on pavements the saddest of all things winding up their week winding down their week the market as it closed on this saturday night remember the childhood of wandering grass lanterns hung on poles at street corners and the old roar of vendors and traffic when the lamplighter climbed hooked the lantern on its pole and moved on to another and the children turned their faces to its moth their eyes white as their nighties the market itself was closed in its involved darkness and the shadows quarreled for bread in the shops or quarreled for the formal custom of quarreling in the electric rum shops i remember the shadows the van was slowly filling in the dark moon depot i sat in the front seat i had no need for time i looked at two girls one in a yellow bodice and yellow shorts with a flower in her hair and lusted in peace the other less interesting that evening i had walked the streets of the town where i was born and grew up thinking of my mother with her white hair tinted by the dying dusk and the tilting box houses that seemed perverse in their crump i had peered into parlours with half closed jaluzis at the dim furniture morris chairs a center table with wax flowers and the lithograph of christ of the secret heart vendors still selling to the anti streets sweets nuts sodden chocolates nutcakes mints an old woman with a straw hat overhead kerchief hobbled towards us with a basket somewhere some distance off was a heavier basket that she couldn't carry she was in a panic she said to the driver park it a matter which is in our history and that of a people don't leave me on earth or by a shift of stress don't leave me the earth for an inheritance park it a matter heavenly transport don't leave me on earth i've had enough of it the bus filled in the dark with heavy shadows that would not be left on earth no that would be left on the earth and would have to make out abandonment was something they had grown used to and i had abandoned them i knew they were sitting in the transport in the sea quiet dusk with men hunched in canals and the orange lights from the vg headland black boats on the water i who could never solidify my shadow to be one of their shadows had left them their their white rum quarrels and the coal bags the hatred of couples of all authority i was deeply in love with the woman by the window i wanted to be going home with her this evening i wanted her to have the key to our small house by the beach at grozille i wanted her to change into a smooth white nighty that would pour like water over the black rocks of the breasts to lie simply beside her by the ring of a brass brass lamp with a kerosene wick and telling silence that her hair was like a hill forest at night that the trickle of rivers was in her armpits that i would buy her benign if she wanted to and never leave her on earth but the others too because i felt a great love that could bring me to tears and a pity that prickled my eyes like a nettle i was afraid i might certainly start sobbing on the public transport with the marley going and a small boy peering over the shoulders of the driver and me at the lights coming here at the rush of the road in the country darkness with lumps in the houses on the small hills and tickets of stars i had abandoned them i had left them on earth i had left them to sing marley songs of sadness as real as the smell of rain on dry earth or the smell of damp sand and this bus felt warm with the neighborliness the consideration and the polite partings in the light of its headlamps in the blaire in the third sobbing music the claiming scent that came from their bodies i wanted the transport to continue forever for no one to descend and see a good night in the beams of the lamps and take the crooked path up to the lit door guided by fireflies i wanted a beauty to come into the warmth of considerate wood to the relief the rattling of enamel plates in the kitchen and the tree in the yard but i came to my stop outside the halcyon hotel the lounge would be full of transients like myself then i would walk with the surf of the beach i got off the van without seeing good night good night to be full of inexpressible love they went on in the transport they left me on then a few yards ahead the van stopped a man shouted my name from the transport window i walked up towards him he allowed something a pack of cigarettes had dropped from my pocket he gave it to me i turned hiding my tears there was nothing they wanted nothing i could give them but this thing that i have called the light of the world once again we observe a pattern first the poet captures the struggles of the ordinary black folk but then the images become becomes become quickly transformed by the twilight into perceptions of strength beauty and power here as the persona sits on the bus he also notices that an old woman if her straw hat over a headkerchief was hobbling towards the birth with a basket the woman was in a panic she said to the driver paki temerate the fact that walker chooses to highlight this old woman is significant the description of her brings stuck familiarity she is the poor black grandmother of our island the fact that she's all suggests our seemingly on-ending struggle the poet writes that somewhere some distance off was a heavier basket that she couldn't carry he never really identifies what this heavier basket is perhaps the old woman decided to take up the lighter basket to run and catch the bus leaving the heavier one behind that she'll fetch once she has been able to stop the driver the interpretation works at that literal level however the heavier basket that she couldn't carry could also represent the burden of history of colonization the legacy of degradation but also the responsibility to alleviate the effects of that poverty and on the development on the bus the gaze turns to one of two women and the vision of upliftment begins the poet cast the twilight on the plains of the cheeks and the persona imagines that this light silkened and defined them superficially the effect of the twilight is to merely offer a heightened appreciation for the beauty of the black woman the masculinity of the persona poet kicks in and he leads the reader into quite a sensuous engagement imagining a powerful and sweet odor coming from her as the bus travels from castries to grozily the traveler pours the lights from the environment as well as from his imagination into the verse the images of light are clear when he writes that he wanted her to change into a smooth white knight that would pour like water over the black rocks of her breasts the contrast between the black and white illuminates and the scene becomes romanticized with a glue as the traveler imagine lying next to the woman by the ring of a brass lamp with a kerosene week there are cues in the image however that reflect the consistency in what the twilight says the poet aims at a restoration of pride in color and ancestry he appreciates the bulging whites of her eyes the carved ebony mouth the head he recognizes was nothing else but heraldic the choice of the word heraldic air reinforces the notion that the woman descends from a powerful lineage his reference to benin an ancient kingdom of africa and is offered to buy her that kingdom if she wanted it suggests a yearning for an imagined royalty in the african motherland even when it became almost too dark to see in that moment of transience when everything was going in the dusk the persona poet caught the line of the profile and the highly chic and comes to this conclusion in the twilight oh beauty you are the light of the world walkup continues to use the interplay of the light of the sun and the moon at twilight to suggest trajectories of renewal we witness the same in the play dream on monkey mountain he sets the beginning of the action thus a spotlight warms the wide disc of an african drum until it glows like the round moon above it below the moon is the star silhouette of a volcanic mountain reversed the moon becomes the sun the volcanic mountain as day changes in tonight so the transition from crown colony to independence will be no different if caribbean blacks do not heal themselves from the shame of their blackness without such healing there'll be no new civilization here twilight captures the possibility of accepting and appreciating the value of both worlds of raising the african ancestry to full and equal value and acceptance following the world could gaze and understanding what the twilight says what the twilight keeps saying one studies his reflections in the poem love until the poem takes its title from that settlement on a hill in the city of port of spain trinidad it is a community occupied mainly by descendants of black working class migrant workers well cut gazes upon the hill in the twilight and he wrote i stand out on a balcony and watch the sun pave its flat golden path across the roofs the aerials cranes the tops of fruit trees crawling downward to the city something inside is laid open like a wound some open passage that has cleft the brain some deep amnesiac blow we left somewhere alive we never found the sun's golden path would eliminate the overcrowded living conditions of love until a community on a hill above the city of port of spain settled by the descendants of enslaved africans it is a community where the inheritors of the middle passage stewed five to a room still clumped below the hatch breeding like felonies the poet's concern is the children from habitual and the lives fixed in the unalterable groove of grinding poverty love until is to some extent a dark place on the psyche of the state of trinidad a community no till notorious for crime well cut likens this darkness to the same experience below the deck on the slave ship during the middle passage the residents of love until was still trapped he writes the middle passage never guessed its end this is the height of poverty for the desperate and black the light that the poet carried to his ruminations upon love until allows him to identify with the residents and focus his lens upon the reasons for their predicament and he writes some grill of light clunged shut on us in bondage and withheld us from that world below us and beyond and in its swaddling seriments we're still bound ladies and gentlemen we followed walker's gaze in another life his first book length poem and witness his lens envisioning gold for even the poor black inhabitants of his island good gold i'd like you to follow his gaze now in omaris undoubtedly his most impacting book length poem which he wrote over 20 years later welcome to turn his gaze again to that sight in castries that cited the warfrats the stevedore masqueraders that cited the phenomenal grace and endurance of the cool carriers and he writes in his boyhood he had seen women climb like ants up a white flower pot baskets of cool balance on their torch on the heads without touching them up the black pyramids its spine straight as a pool and with a strength that never altered its rhythm look they climb and no one knows them they take their copper pittances and your duty from the time you watch them from your grandmother's house as a child wounded by their power and beauty is the chance you now have to give those feet a voice the gaze is one of pure admiration for those black women for their skill and strength and for their poise these are the qualities that walker saw when as a boy he witnessed those cool carriers the skill of balancing the baskets without touching them the strength in their backbone and the consistency in their measure a suggestion of grace as he reflects upon them further realized that those black cool carriers were actually an inspiration to the young poet they were his black grandmothers the last line in this stanza is of utmost significance to the calls and success of the poet the rhythm of the cold dusted naked feet of the cold carriers as they climb the plank becomes a new take a westinian version if you like of the alexandrian meter the superficial choice of meter for the poem giving the feet of the cold carriers a voice is a part of the upward journey to decolonization it is psychic healing the honest confrontation of history for psychological healing necessitates an adjustment of gaze this is what the twilight keeps saying and therefore as the poet turns our gaze to a cold-carrying maternal ancestors he calls us to heal see her there my mother my grandmother my great grandmother see the black answer of their sons their cold-carrying mothers feel the shame the hate draining from all our bodies the colonial legacy left us a wound the metaphor is that saw carried by philip tet another character in omaros who saw on his leg won't heal walker writes he believed the swelling came from the chain ankles of his grandfathers or else why was there no cure that the cross he carried was not only the uncles but that of his race for a village black and poor and the pigs that rooted in its burning garbage then were hooked on the uncles of the abattoir our minds need to be decolonized if we are to heal from our wound of self-hatred it is this self-hatred that is retarding our development and by extension the development of our societies mark Hillman prepares a root bath in a cauldron to wash off philip tet wound it is a traditional herbal remedy that should have inherited from African ancestors it is significant that it was a root bath it is also significant that she had him bathed in a cauldron it is one of those cauldrons from the old sugar mill they connect to plantation slavery and to the reason for philip tet she the healing process requires a confrontation of our colonial history not a refusal to engage it Walker confronts the ghost of his own colonial family heritage that obstructed his own healing both of his parents from mulatto's and the responsible for his early preoccupation with european art his father died when his only one year had left books behind that secured a link to the culture of europe Walker describes separate imagined encounters with both of his parents one of his mother at the marion home in st lusia when he visits from the u.s and other with his father who suddenly appears to him in boston in confronting his parents he makes it a point that he has now come into his own to his father he says you could have been my child and the more i live the more our age is widened during his visit to his mother he surmises i was both father and son he wishes to make a point here perhaps that he had outgrown them it appears he had come to the realization that he must emerge from the seemingly complete whiteness of their legacy in order to fully accept his african roots a crucial part of the healing process he describes the end of his visit with his mother thus i left her on the veranda with her white hair the symbolism is clear the color of her hair represents the white component of his heritage he left that component of his heritage to buckets clanging in the african twilight where two girls at the stunt pipe collected water similarly he describes his sudden imaginary encounter with his father when he's trolling along a beach in marblehead a town in massachusetts and he writes white shoes will block in my path i looked up my father stood in the white drill suit of his of his eternal summer on another wharf this is quite a fitting place for an imaginary encounter with his father another wharf not the wharf of the cold carriers but a wharf in a big city the choice of marblehead there signifies walker's association of his father with the stone sculptures and literatures and paintings of western cities the father confesses that he saw his shadow on the flagstones of big cities that the histories carried him over the bridge of self contempt therefore this description of the imagined encounter with his parents when the poet was 60 years old speaks to his own conscious personal efforts at psychical decolonization to conclude i would like to draw attention to the essay from which the title of this presentation got its name which walker first published in 1970 i had to convince you of the poet's commitment to black consciousness before i go to the actual essay because the essay is really a political missive that through walker's i sensed into some serious controversy i think though that at this juncture in our history we need to revisit some of the points that walker was making and consider whether he envisioned some of the problems that we are now experiencing in too many of our communities here are some direct quotations from the essay every state sees its image in those forms which have the mass appeal of the sport seasonal and amateurish stomped on that image is the old colonial grimace of the laughing nigger steel bandsmen carnival masquer calypsoan and limbo dancer these popular artists are trapped in the state's concept of folk form for they preserve the colonial demeanor and threaten nothing this was not water generation envisage 20 years ago when a handful of childish visionaries foresaw a republic devoted to the industry of art for in those days we had nothing else how does the state see our arts and what do we do about it a second quotation we recognize electricity for what it was a defect not the attribute it is now considered to be by revolution by revolutionaries next quote no for the colonial artist the enemy was not the people or the people's could aesthetic which he refined and orchestrated the enemy was those who had elected themselves as protectors of the people frauds who cried out against indignities done to the people frauds yet who urged them to acquire pride which meant abandoning the individual dignity who cried out that black is beautiful like transmitters from a different revolution without explaining what they meant by beauty all of these are emerged from no way suddenly their rough philosophies were meant to coarsen every grace to demean courtesy to brook no debate we had come from an older wiser side of world that had already exorcised those devils but these were calling out the old devils to political use which doctors of the new left the new left with imported totems the people were ready to be betrayed again i am reminded of papa doc and baby doc and the legacy and chaos in it walker had some big quarrels quarrels like the sound of buckets clashing near the standpipe in the twilight it seems to me that his quarrel with some academics and intellectuals in the caribbean society stemmed from what his sense was a danger of cultivating an identity politics primarily for self-posturing and for the acquisition of power but walker's quarrels with many of his contemporaries also stemmed from his conviction that the caribbean was whom and that the caribbean person should really embrace the entirety of his cultural heritage and out of this fashion and new identity the Nobel committee recognized this when they noted his poetic ove of great luminosity the outcome of a multicultural commitment the Nobel committee was right of course however there is a bit of a complication and this complication has been the whole point of my discussion here the fact that walker was committed to multicultural harmony does not mean that he was not committed to the cause of black liberation the fact that he drew from western theater conventions does not mean that he was not committed to the use of african derived theater practices the fact that he was schooled and practiced in european poetic forms does not mean that he was not passionately engaged in the creative use of caribbean morality given the heroic status that we give to walker through these annual celebrations these misconceptions about his work need to be cleared thank you any questions is fine one more time give it up for dr weeks what the twilight keeps saying i now want to invite the audience present here tonight to the microphone on my left on your right and there's also another microphone here as well to ask questions engage in discussion at this time ladies and gentlemen i'm gravy and one done an infuse of um Nobel laureates week and so on you know and an infuse of poetry of authoring and singing and so on you know and um whatever it is like i wasn't around when derrick was in his full legacy you know i mean he was spoutic i was little boy going school by me and whatnot and um i didn't know what really was going on you know so it seems that it's it's like um bob molly had that um kind of feature that kind of characterism of um not bob molly but derrick all had that kind of characterism of bob molly's um legacy but um then you find that um he had poetry his name was been announced with poetry and not liberation which would do have expanded our minds more about him and about the the the facts of life in general what he was actually initiating i wonder why it wasn't that way thank you mr antuan but you say he wasn't there in the middle of his legacy i i wasn't there as well but um i think that the fact that we have all these celebrations every year and all these talks um will help us understand a little more about you know the liberation that you're thinking of yeah thank you dr wicks are very thought-provoking lecture um molly has said that many of the region's problems is due to self contempt self hatred the notion that other people are inherently superior to us um do you think some of the issue some of the problems she mentioned was the bleaching of our skins um the rising crime rate and so forth do you think walcott will agree well i can already speak for him but considering um the discussion and the admiration that you can see in his work for those women on the bus in the light of the world um definitely bleaching and all that would not be something i think that um he would admire considering what what he what he wrote but yeah i think i've heard me mention that and and i mean i i zeroed in on that because it's still very crucial because after you know marcus garvey's work after the black power revolution and struggles after the advent of rastafarianism certainly a lot of work has been done but given some of the crucial issues that we have now we have to prove and see um whether it's still uh deeply rooted refusal for us to accept ourselves our brother and our sister as you know and and their strength and power and intelligence and our own um that we can use for our development whether it is that that deep underlying refusal for us to acknowledge our own equality in the world and and start from there whether that is the reason why we still have so much unsettling to put it euphemistically you know issues in our community expounding and propounding on um derrick walcott's writings and teachings so that we could reflect afresh on some of the works that he has left with us um in our civilization so that we could make it a better place but i want to reflect on some of the quotations that derrick has left us and how we could use it in our lives today in the struggles of life in the the battle that we are in as a food will country and in our own personal struggles to help us reconcile and and i will give some examples and i hope you could expand and propound on it for example in his speak about breaking avas one of his quotations break avas and the love that it takes to reassemble the fragments is greater than the love that took the symmetry for granted when it was whole in another place he speak of survival is the triumph of stubbornness and in another place he says he says um kudme how did he put it he says um when we lose the tribal duty of helping on another the kudme we lose spirit and we lose the country as we have lost the the flight of the pelican these quotes are sort of tattooed in my memory and how it helps me personally navigate through the some of the struggles of life for example breaking avas when we have conflicts personal conflicts so you know among ourselves among how do we resolve it and the love that it takes to reassemble these fragments the broken parts of our own society and all of this kind of course i'm just seeing you know dig deeper in what derrick was trying to say and can you just you know help us um in in in some of these quotes that i've mentioned and some of them that you know how in the 21st century we could apply that to solve in our problems people like what god is other noble laureates of one of his quotes was um um in everything there is a crack but it's through the light that the crack gets in and um so he's in essence he's in us all of us have cracks so we could be you know we need to be more sympathetic with one another in our weaknesses and in our strength so you know give us a little you know play with play with it yeah all right well yeah i mean your take on is interesting because the that um vase imagery um you know stemmed from his thoughts on on the effects of colonization and the disintegration the disintegration that it caused but it's interesting how you apply it to what's happening now and and that is why i towards the end of my discussion i zoomed in on some of the issues that we're facing now because you see when you talk about the wound and he speaks a lot about the wound um and what is happening now in our communities we really must ask ourselves um and and yeah the quotation i meant to mention about um without telling him what beauty is you know um do we have i'm speaking to you directly to your question do we have and do we cultivate our leaders do they as well a genuine love for the blacks in the communities for the young black men in the community or are they just pawns when they are seen how are they seen are they seen with loving eyes what's the gaze or are they just seen as pawns and if they are does that speak to the wound and the self-contempt and it's all that related to what is happening in caribbean society the madness to put it bluntly that is happening in caribbean society society in other words we all have some kind of crap we all have some kind of struggle we all have some kind of i mean that that is i i that is um that that is life i mean you know it's life and i don't think that in itself is a problem i mean you know when we're born we just know his life is a struggle so the the personal struggle i think is not for me the bigger problem the bigger problem stem from some of the social issues yeah that is a bigger problem um you know i mean and it's not it's it's not peculiar to st lusia it's a caribbean thing and that is why um when i reverted to the s c what the twilight says where walcott i said issued a political missive you know it's like rodney and the issues rodney had with his brothers um you know i mean the brothers were up in arms at the time it's like you know this man he had no black consciousness you know but now years later so many years later and we see what is happening you know in trinidad in st lusia in jamaica everywhere we we need to take stock again and kind of wheel and come again to sort of speak wheel and come again and and look at what we did where we are where we going what we're doing now and seriously um look at our communities and and and and begin to see the young people as individuals as people people see them as people yeah not as pawns and i think that we the citizens have to kind of cultivate that consciousness yeah have to cultivate that consciousness that that is how we must begin to look at the societies and if we do that and begin to do that i think we'd be on the way to dealing with some of the issues that we have because we can't we can't just see criminals and statistics and problems without seeing humans we have to see humans first that is why i um i you know we we can't live in fear we can't it doesn't make sense you know we have to see human beings thank you dr weeks we continue with the discussion on the lecture and what the twilight continues to say i i want to acknowledge the presence of monsignor patrick anthony as well as uh sir derrick's partner sigurd nama we haven't done that so far dr weeks uh how do you respond to to the concern of the likely diminished legacy of the black race the diminished opportunity diminished priority should there be full embrace of this vision of sir derrick of multiculturalism this diplomacy because just as concerning as he just as concerned as he was for colonialism the corruption of colonial colonialism as well as the concern he had for postcolonial nationalism uh any any response to the risk of us um of the black race being diminished or feeling diminished in that pursuit okay so it's normal or it we can be celebrating south as well as um derrick and um they both came of age um as the as the the british empire was in decline and we will begin to come into our own um but for both of them and it is clear from derrick's writings and from sarah's writings as well that what concerned them was the poverty of the people the poverty of the people um you know and the degradation that this poverty caused and and so in two different ways south as an as an economist through his research and his work um and his articulation of routes that we could take to make use of of of the the resources of our people um for their own development and derrick through his poetic vision um um capturing them in that in that twilight and seeing where they could be um it is clear that both of these great men wanted the elevation of the people out of the indignity of of of poverty right um and and really um debilitating living conditions so so when you ask about so this is what diminishes diminishes us this is what is creating a lot of chaos and anxiety you know among our people in the communities and so on so so we seriously have to be able to look at our people and see the the possibilities for them in the twilight in in in that gilded frame we have to see them there so many things from our colonial heritage um allow us to see our people in the harshest of ways you know to speak of them in the harshest of of of terms to see them as good for nothing right so much in our history has caused that so you know so that's part of the wound part of the wound when when we travel and we go to all these developed places and so on and we we understand and we do appreciate that these people have a sense of pride not just in themselves but of their people so they don't look at their people as good for nothing they look at their people as people who are entitled who deserve good living conditions right so do we do we see our people that way do we really do or are we still do are we still have are we still affected by the colonial gaze where we see them um right one more question for me um if you could speak to how literature caribbean literature has evolved um since the the writings of sir derrick pushing multiculturalism because during his time the other caribbean writers were writing through the land through the the the lenses of race and it was not necessarily popular at the time he was a man starting this in in literature so in your work um at the university um in your work here in st lusia how are you seeing there being an emergence of multiculturalism in literature being promoted in literature showing up in literature yeah it was always there because um because of our heritage because um being colonized by various colonial powers we just naturally inherited um cultural and linguistic um elements from various places so you know so it's it's it's there in us and it comes out naturally in our work um we write in a language you write in english um we write in english creoles or french creoles um so that itself is an indication it's always there i mean for for person like um like derrick who was more clearly like he said divided to the v in was more directly wounded and affected by um the multiculturalism then a lot of it comes out in his work um you know so and i think you know caribbean societies you know trinidad where i work um you know particularly in the music and the writing the literature i mean it's these are issues that are explored all the time and just naturally because people express themselves they want to express who they are and there's always a search um or rather a need to express one's identity to make a statement of who we are so in societies where you have various ethnicities you'd find that kind of dialogue happening through literature through music where they express who they are so i don't think that that is going to go away it is useful it is important um but it is also particularly important that that all voices um contend and that there is a recognition of equality of of of equality in terms of abilities potentials rights etc etc but more importantly as i try to show in my discussion discussion sorry the the psychical decolonization it has to happen with individuals but it has to happen within the collective as well the society has to i am not convinced i am not convinced that we have achieved psychical mental psychological decolonization i think that is you know that goes to the root of our problem not i i can't say that i know derrick like you or like any of the other bright people there but the the one thing i get is that derrick is derrick seems to be at least from your lecture somebody who straddled the two sides of a fulcrum somebody who perpetually existed in the intersections of venn diagram so he was neither the bourgeoisie nor the male way he was neither the black nor the white neither the educated class nor the uneducated neither the europeanized person or the africanized one my question is do you think that that served um as an advantage for him or did it in some way cheat him of the ability to express whatever he felt with the amount of venom or acidity that he wanted to well i i think that he was just a really dedicated and passionate artist um i mean i'm looking at that from the outside i mean his partner his head i shouldn't be speaking to the man like i know him i had no interest in the individual by the way but i was there was nobody there were there are few people as i found as interested in his work as i was when i when i was studying him um so the but the point is um i think that that dedication to the to the art i mean i you know the man was just really so focused on his on his art i mean i remember the first time i i saw him on the beach many many years ago he was painting he had an easel was painting and i remember some of us around him and he was like you know he hardly wavered from what he was doing you know um hardly just he just was so zeroed in so to answer your question um all these issues whether he was this or that or whatever whatever i think he he was just fired to put it into artistic expression whether it is as a writer or as a painter and that worked for him yeah let me let me just make my question a little bit clearer what i'm saying is right if i were to use an example um he right his his parents were both mulatto which means that he had some allegiance to his blackness and some allegiance to his whiteness and in him saying something expressing his opinion on something how he felt about something i'm thinking he may not want to offend his white side if the thing may be unwhite or his black side i'm saying do you think that that factored at all in the way he expressed or would he have been had he been maybe a black man like myself would he have expressed it with more venom than he did as somebody who's mixed that's what i'm asking i don't know how much more venom you would want but if you were a far in seattle fair god is a white man the sky is blue eyes the raiders is spit on the people of dofair i don't know how much more venom you need than that it happens that um Derek seemed to have been that kind of man dream on monkey mountain and um you cannot tell what is dream on monkey mountain scene i was trying to figure out whatever is dream on monkey mountain scene where is um you were in a mountain where dreams were okay all right let me just help you quickly so um dream on monkey mountain actually monkey mountain was patterned it appears on la souciere where you see a mist if you're in baboon all right yeah so but but macaq the character had a dream he saw a white apparition that tell him if he goes to africa he'll become a king that was the dream he used to dream of this white apparition like a large obelisk would tell him go to africa he'll be a king so that was the dream on monkey mountain yeah all right okay well all i was driving at it as i said i was directing to i was directing the writers it happened at um if Derek did um write of subjective content such as grace peace love well abilities and so on where do you think recent decisions we have been today i leave it to the writers all right thanks yeah he wrote all about that here um pablo i hope you understood what i was saying what the point i was making was that the venom and all that he put it into his art so the voice of alpha you alpha in dufer you have venomous ears so the man was an artist so he wouldn't stand up there and you know he he was working and and he left the work so i i wish i could do that you know i would prefer to be an artist i'm a i'm a i'm a reluctant academic i always resist in academia so you know but the dedication to the art that's what he did whatever conflicts he felt he put it into the art yeah everybody dr weeks thanks for giving me a different look at derrick walcott because the derrick walcott i studied and read about and so many of his creative works and um he actually invited me to come to a rehearsal one time of his steel which didn't quite make it um but i'm hearing a whole different side of derrick and one of the things about senlution people or senlutions as a whole is we really do appreciate our people likes sir arthur and and derrick i would like to hear a little more about sir arthur though because that maybe because i know a little about derrick um but with derrick one of the things i was actually looking at um maybe that's a part of the american part of me but in terms of females it's nice to hear you say um look at the females from the perspective that you were giving us in terms of the sexiness and everything else but um sometimes i need to step back and look at it from a more chauvinistic perspective of the way the way he was seeing people but also we have to realize that as solutions we have this double consciousness maybe we might even have triple consciousness or maybe even more than that now because we have what our culture now is about the british the french very much the american from what i see chinese well now it's time and ease i guess but um just understanding um we talked about somebody asked a question about multiculturalism just just looking at all of that for us aren't we really confused people and we really need to get to a point of understanding that so we can start siphoning and realizing what we want to become and um because i think the derrick i think that was part of his the the the the fight because we do fight with ourselves i don't know about anybody else because we do have that french thing based on how we grew up and then you have the english thing the british thing you know and then you go away different places and live different places and you get some of that too so how do we really reconcile all these parts of ourselves you know to to to understand somebody like derrick because derrick was teaching both since then i've read some of his brother's work to roddy's works and i i tend to think that maybe roddy had more a solution self or solution uh persona than derrick did but we're not going to get into that right now but um tell me how you think that we should go about understanding ourselves and as academics how do you really think that we should look at all these aspects ourselves and become this whole person because i don't know about anybody else but it's really difficult especially when you come back into the solution society to to figure out who we are solutions so i don't know if you could um well let me say this again again um one thing i discovered um about playwriting you know and um when i was doing undergrad i did a whole year of chic spare and after that i said to myself chic spare really is the greatest playwright one thing i understood about clip playwriting was that you have to give each character you create equality of voice and expression um well let's say particularly main characters because you have minor characters you can't do it for all of them but if you have main characters you have to create what we call in literature in literature create around the characters right um so i'm saying this to say that at the at the heart of it already lies humanity so you know an art provides a way so as conflicting as one may be so if if i'm a playwright in as much as for example i have advocated for the cause of black people and the decolonization psychical decolonization but if i were to create a play and have main characters and i have a white character and i have a black character right as Derek has done in some of his plays like see an unpublished play like franklin or please like um you know some of the plays like the joker of sevilla or some of the later plays is i have to to give this white character and this black character an equal chance or else my play would be flawed because i have not created whole human beings i have been prejudicial and as an artist i can't i have to resist that so um so we we're talking about two things and it's the same conversation with Pablo my good friend there we're talking about art we're also talking about humanity and and so as a human being in as much as you may be affected by the injustice or by prejudice or whatever when you sit down with your work you have to give fullness to each aspect of it that you particularly if you're trying to create human you mean you didn't need humanity i don't know if i'm answering your question so the point is that the he was a playwright he was a poet as an artist and when he sat down doing his work the craft itself demands that anyway the craft demands a fullness of treatment as a human being we need to be we need to look at that we need to look at all aspects of ourselves right in order to be also i understand in terms of playwriting but um i think part of the question is uh he uh he was trying to understand as a black man would derrick be a little more forceful in his writing as opposed to derrick being a marata person right uh so i'm saying now in terms of us people solution people how there must be a way and maybe not the artist and maybe somebody else here in the audience could answer that question but really and truly how do we see ourselves as equals everybody and that's not our society we know that at from the bottom of the top how do we see ourselves what what what attributes do we have as solutions to really represent ourselves as solutions there's there's right now it is very confusing it is exceptionally confusing for me and i really like for somebody to help me understand that because you're we were coming when i when i listen to people on the radio and i listen to there are a lot of things that we have as solutions and religion being one of the key by the looks of things i was listening to a program today because we need to understand who we are so how do we understand who we are in order to move forward how do we understand ourselves to develop well fully well in in in omeros um ashil the main character journey's back to africa yeah he has to in order to fully in order for the psychical decolonization to play to take place and for him to gain full acceptance in dream on monkey mountain macaque um through the dream not literally but it happens nevertheless journey's back to africa um so i you know i i made an attempt that's why i make an attempt to go to the text and i was saying earlier when i was having a discussion with the bullet that um artists you have to look at their work you know everybody's an individual and is a work that really because the work is the truth the work is the truth and that's why we do it that's why we do the art so i'm i'm showing you in the individuals who in his car in his place in his work rather than has made the journey back um so to know ourselves that part of us that were made to be ashamed of our roots our history associated with our color we had to go we have to go back and find the truth there and erase a lot of the the lies and and then come to a full acceptance and a sense of our worth so are we doing this now i mean i i love the fact that you just said that because but i don't see actually no maybe i should take that back because there is a there's a little there's a little of that coming now right because i do see a little of that because just looking around i can see i see all the different hairstyles now and all the different but but at one point in in in um i mean derrick's work in terms of people wanting to be white or people wanting to be of a different color because we think that that is our true selves or that's the better self or whatever whatever that is but um i don't see i don't see us doing enough of that i lived in a community in the community of moshi for um about five or six years and i did some research there and one thing that startled me when i go there there are young people there because of a myth who believed that the acoust yeah and that story has come down that um there was a a white priest and he was on a horse and the people forced him to dance and because of that he cursed the land and the people and um and and so you have people still carrying that around them believing that they're cursed and and the narrative is repeated i mean i'm sure a lot of work has been done to try to um counter that but it's so it's so ingrained but that's just a lack of something you know one part of of of what happened what has happened to us so so yes a lot of issues that we have stemmed from that still stemmed from a lack of a deep that deep wound that needs to be cured so it is about communication and knowledge and continuously re educating ourselves and re educating the younger ones and whatever because somehow i think that we really do need to get into that part of ourselves a lot of people here have done a lot of work to try to eradicate what um what you're saying um and and um you know it's not easy and it can't stop but it has to continue but it is urgent and i think that part of the urge some of the urgency has to now look at some of the the current issues of the power dynamics in our society and and and and we can't join that we have to see the danger and pull out from it and continue the work and focus on the on the roots okay our discussion time has expired i would like to thank dr travis weeks what the twilight like he's saying following the gaze of derrick walcott i know many of you would have loved to get in queue to ask him a question on on the record but you have time to to pick his brain after uh we're we're done with this broadcast thank you so very much doctor weeks for that insight and that new perspective for many on sir derrick walcott we at this time would like to invite to the lectern the executive director of the cultural development foundation mrs ramona henry win to present a token to our guest speaker this evening and i think there's something special in there they just went to get an additional gift to put in there for you on the exceptional job that you have done uh this evening so once again thank you very much doctor weeks let's give a round of applause on the latest presenter of the sir derrick walcott memorial lecture good evening everyone but meet me to recognize the presence of his excellency governor general aero charles um the impollet louisie governor general emeritus the diplomatic corps i didn't hear mention of our past director mr linden annals also the chair of investing lucha and thank you all of you for being here would you agree with me that there's a friend of mine i'm not sitting here tonight um stand bishop he uses this phrase home have and i really think tonight from listening to travis home have you know we speak of excellence as the theme says and the last five years we have featured saint lucians to deliver the derrick walcott lecture and for me that is an indication of how proud we are of who we are as a people and of our own i think i heard somebody say are we are we proud of our people yes we are because it's evident tonight that we have again for the fifth year featured as inclusion to deliver the derrick walcott lecture and i think he has done justice and i think that is why some persons were expecting him to think for derrick and how derrick would think i think there um travis you did a really wonderful job i think your lecture was very profound it was very um self-explanatory i think that is why you didn't get that many questions people ask you to think for derrick but i think you did a wonderful job of capturing and your interpretations of derrick's work i think has enlightened all of us in this room tonight and i think um this is what the the cultural development foundation and its work aims to do to nurture that creativity and i was even proud of when i saw your dad coming through the elevator and for me it was passing on that mantle passing on that baton and it is only because he has done that for you that you are able to stand heavy forests and really present you know so i think he deserves a round of applause on behalf of our ministry our minister the honorable dr oness hillay and our ministry the cultural development foundation board of directors management and staff and the noble laureate committee i wish to express our sincere gratitude to all of our supporters the library credit union as i heard earlier um all of you for being here tonight some faces you see year on year um you come out and you really sit and take it in we encourage you to continue to to to you come and encourage other persons to join you as well i think um the lecture tonight or what we come and sit here and listen to i think a lot of times we have to pay for it it's free to us so i think we should really you know embrace the talent that we have in st lusia and i'd like to say again on behalf of my agency the cultural development foundation the ministry and the noble laureate committee more so the chair of the committee i would like to express our gratitude to all of you for being here and um get home safely and i wish you traveling mooses thank you to say thank you so on behalf of the noble laureate festival committee st lusia we express sorry it's sincerest appreciation to dr travis wicks for presenting the 2024 sir derrick walker memorial lecture on the 23rd of january 2024 which also happens to be my birthday very much everyone thank you happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday happy birthday happy noble laureate day everyone and it's definitely ending on a wonderful note we'd like to thank each and everyone of you for coming out this evening we hope that you've been well fed with the words from a doctor weeks and also the insight and the input from some of the persons who contributed this evening thank you so much uh this is all we have and now we invite you to some refreshments um outside do enjoy the rest of your evening and the rest of the noble laureate festival activities