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Shame On You, Mr. Walcott

By Kenneth Goldsmith

It’s astonishing to me that a writer as celebrated as Derek Wolcott would condescend to spewing such clichés of “terror at the blank page” or tired Romantic notions as to “whether he can make a successful poem again” to a national audience. Do we need this “great Nobel laureate” to reinforce such narrow, sophomoric and unsophisticated notions of what it means to be a writer at this juncture in time, when so many ways of writing and thinking are available to us? Walcott insists: “Anyone [meaning any poet] who tells you otherwise is lying.” Well, Mr. Walcott, I’m telling you otherwise: I wrote nearly 13,000 words on why you are dead wrong on my Poetry Foundation Journal here a few weeks ago. Shame on you, Mr. Walcott, for dumbing-down a discourse instead of raising the bar as a laureate should.

2007-03-21

Comments (3)

  • On March 21, 2007 at 11:54 am niki wrote:

    You say “It’s astonishing to me that a writer as celebrated as Derek Wolcott would condescend to spewing such clichés of “terror at the blank page” or tired Romantic notions as to “whether he can make a successful poem again” to a national audience.” If he is celebrated, it is because an audience has made him such. The fact that he is insecure when facing the blank page doesn’t make him condescending, it makes him human. The fact that you find his comments a “dumbing-down” of discourse reeks of something else, but in the interest of keeping the ‘bar raised,’ I’ll keep this to myself.
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  • On March 21, 2007 at 3:37 pm Jimmy wrote:

    Geez, Kenny. Lighten up. The guy doesn’t think he can write anymore: have a little compassion. It’s tough to feel blocked. Even for Nobel dudes.
    xxxjimmy
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  • On March 26, 2007 at 12:07 pm Mari wrote:

    It takes an emotional adult to admit to his vulnerabilites, his frailties, his occasional (or frequent) “terror at the blank page”. It is not sophomoric, nor is it condescending. It takes courage. And humility. Insecurity and ambivalence are realities for many of us who create art, no matter our medium, no matter how celebrated or obscure. Anyone interested in reading further on the subject might want to check out *The Captive Muse: On Creativity and Its Inhibition* by Susan Kolodny. Or Albert Rothenberg’s *The Emerging Goddess: The Creative Process in Art, Science, and Other Fields*.
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Posted in Group Blog, Uncategorized on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 by Kenneth Goldsmith.

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