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Home , Derek Walcott

Faculty Obituaries

Derek Walcott “a True Literary Giant”

Poet and playwright taught at BU, founded Boston Playwrights’ Theatre | BY JOEL BROWN

Nobel Prize–winning poet and playwright Derek Wal- cott (Hon.’93), who taught at BU from 1981 until he retired in 2007, died March 17, 2017, at his home on his native , at age 87. “I am sad for BU and sad for the world,” says playwright Melinda Lopez (GRS’00), a College of Arts & Sciences adjunct assistant professor of playwriting, who was a student in Wal- cott’s playwriting class. “For those of us who knew and loved him, Derek’s passing is a milestone in our lives—certainly it is in mine,” Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (BPT) artistic director Kate Snodgrass (GRS’90), a CAS professor of the practice of playwriting, wrote on the theater’s blog. was known as the “genius grant,” in its language and also in Walcott founded the BPT in teaching and and he used a portion of his its themes.” 1981. “For the world, we have playwriting at BU when award to help found the BPT, Snodgrass says that Wal- lost a needed presence, a he was awarded the still going strong today. His cott’s playwriting “is human- gifted poet and playwright, a in Litera- son, Peter, an architect, de- ist and complicated,” with true literary giant.” ture in 1992. signed the fi rst theater space themes of colonialism and Walcott won the Nobel in the rear at the Comm society-against-the-individ- Prize in Literature in 1992 Ave facility, Snodgrass says. ual, but also seen through for work the Nobel commit- the prize, “In him West Walcott wanted playwrights fl awed yet heroic characters. tee called “a poetic oeuvre of Indian culture has found its and actors to have a place to “There is a certain sadness great luminosity, sustained great poet....Three loyalties grapple with new work, she around his plays, a wistful by a historical vision, the are central for him—the says, and he loved working longing,” she says. That may outcome of a multicultural Caribbean, where he lives, with actors. be why she names play-with- commitment.” At the time, the English language, and “He wanted to bring music The Joker of Seville, his most recent work was his African origin.” poetry back to American written with his friend Galt 1990’s , a Caribbean In Boston, Walcott was theater; I don’t mean strict McDermot, composer of epic the committee said was perhaps best known for his verse, but the rhythmic, Hair, as a favorite. “There’s “a work of incomparable work in theater. In 1981, the musical language that Derek a great deal of joy in that, ambitiousness, in which year he began teaching in the was so strong with,” she says. and humor,” she says. Walcott weaves his many Creative Writing Program as “He always wrote in verse, Lopez, author of Sonia strands into a whole.” a CAS professor of English, which is extraordinary and Flew and Becoming Cuba, In the words of the Nobel he won a MacArthur Founda- not done that often here. says Walcott was a “terrifi c committee in announcing tion Fellowship, commonly His work is Shakespearean and terrifying” teacher.

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Game-Changing In his class, student play- written, you had to go and wrights brought in scenes see him in his offi ce, which Foreign Correspondent to be read by actors. “Some- felt a bit like visiting the lion times Derek would let the in his den. You had to screw and COM Dean scene go for a page, and up your courage. He knew sometimes he’d stop it after this and relished it, I think. Bernard Redmont reported on world events, the fi rst line,” she says. “He’d The writing of poetry was a moved the college forward | BY TATIANA M. R. JOHNSON ask all sorts of questions brutally serious undertaking about the fi rst line, the fi rst to him—something requir- moment, what happened ing plenty of courage. I was before the lights went on. lucky enough to have many “I remember a classmate extraordinary conversations As a broadcast journalist in of mine who literally could with him in his offi ce. We Paris in 1968, Bernard S. not get through the fi rst line, were both from islands, and Redmont was the fi rst to re- because they spent 20 min- he never got tired of talking port that North Vietnamese utes of class time discussing about the sea.” offi cials were willing to begin what happened before that Born in 1930 on the island peace negotiations. speech,” she says. “I watched of Saint Lucia in the West A foreign correspondent my classmates just squirm Indies, Walcott published for 40 years, Redmont also and squirm, all of them his fi rst poems as a teenager. covered Leon Trotsky’s wondering where this was He taught school at various assassination in Mexico, going, and then there was places around the Caribbean Juan Peron’s dictatorship the ‘aha moment,’ where we after graduating from the in Argentina, and the Six- all got his point, which is University College of the Day War in the Middle East, that the play starts before West Indies in Jamaica. according to the Washing- anyone speaks. Derek didn’t The fi rst of his collec- ton Post. did explain—he . And waited tions to catch the atten- A former professor of jour- Bernard Redmont, pic- In a for us to catch up. And that tion of critics was nalism and dean emeritus of tured here in Moscow, Green Night could be terrifying if it was , published in the College of Communica- was a foreign corre- you. But he was right.” 1962. Among his friends tion, Redmont died on Janu- spondent for 40 years. Lopez recalls that in 2009 and supporters over the ary 23, 2017. He was 98. Walcott was visiting Boston years were He arrived at COM in and came to see a production (Hon.’77), , early 1982, and was dean project between the United of her play From Orchids to and , the from 1983 to 1986. He led States Information Agency Octopi at the Central Square latter two also Nobel laure- the college through cur- (USIA) and BU. Redmont Theater in Cambridge. “He ates. Walcott was also a riculum reforms and a had favored an alternate pro- was lovely and gracious,” talented painter, and his name change—from the posal—to train the journal- she says, “and then he said watercolors of Caribbean School of Public Communi- ists at COM, in an academic to me about the play, ‘That scenes sometimes appeared cation (SPC) to the Col- and independent frame- was a lot of words.’ That on his book covers. lege of Communication—a work—and his disagree- was so Derek, because it was His fi rst play was pro- result of his 1983 long-range ments over the project with absolutely spot-on, a very duced in 1950, and he study of the school. He also John Silber (Hon.’95), then good critique that I would founded the Trinidad helped pilot the continuing the University president, learn from, and it had his Theatre Workshop (then London Internship Pro- led to his resignation. devilish humor.” called the Little Carib The- gramme in 1986. Caryl Rivers, a COM pro- His approach to poetry atre Workshop) in 1959. In response to a 1985 fessor of journalism, recalls class was similar. “Derek The troupe performed two call for proposals from the Redmont as “a man who didn’t use class time for of his plays at the Boston US government, Redmont cared deeply for journalism, workshopping student po- University Theatre in 1995, proposed a project to train both in his career and in his ems,” says poet Kirun Kapur the Elliot Norton Award– Afghan refugees as profes- time in academia.” (GRS’00), who recently pub- winning The Joker of Seville sional journalists in the Redmont served in the US lished the collection Visiting and the Obie winner Dream wake of Soviet intervention Offi ce of the Coordinator Indira Gandhi’s Palmist on Monkey Mountain. Wal- in Afghanistan. The train- of Inter-American Aff airs, (Elixir Press, 2015). cott hit Broadway in 1998, ing ultimately was held in coordinating broadcasts “If you wanted to talk with The Capeman, a col- Peshawar, Pakistan, near to Latin America. A World

FACING PAGE: KALMAN ZABARSKY; THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF BERNARD REDMONT OF COURTESY THIS PAGE: KALMAN ZABARSKY; PAGE: FACING about something you’d laboration with . the Afghan border, in a joint War II veteran and recipient

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