The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Hello and welcome to words that burn, the podcast taking a closer look at poetry. This week's poem of radical self compassion and forgiveness is love after love by Derek Walcott.
Derek Walcott was a Caribbean poet whose list of accolades could take up this entire episode, the nobel prize for Literature and the Macarthur Genius Grant to name but a few (Lea et al.)
That distinction of being a Caribbean poet is essential in understanding Walcott's work. He was a man who always wrote passionately about the history of the Caribbean and the challenging aspects of the identity that came with being from it, both for other people and himself.
He constantly sought to understand the ways in which his own identity and culture could fit within western culture without being moulded by it and eventually worn down. To that end some of his most famous poems are reworkings of western classics. His arguably greatest work Omeros is a retelling of the Iliad from the perspective of a Caribbean fisherman. (Walcott et al, poetry foundation)
This attitude to working within the western literary canon as a black man was sometimes criticised by other afro Caribbean and African American authors of the time as relying too heavily on a voice that was borrowed from oppression. (Bellot, 2017) Many claiming that it was the responsibility of displaced communities to find a new voice and way of poetry (Hutchinson, 2017)
Walcott always viewed this stance as more than a little confusing and to some extent ridiculous. Here he is discussing the notion of the Avant-garde voice in Afro Caribbean poetry and why it didn’t really fit:
Walcott always saw European culture and canon as a way to enrich that was open for everyone and his preoccupation with the question of how can I make this good? Is perhaps a clue as to why his own verse was envied by his contemporaries.
Matthew Hollis once wrote of him:
“Like the classics to which he was constantly drawn,he could bring forth truth from such minute detail, and remind us, vividly and unforgettably, why the examined life truly mattered.” (Lea et al.)
It is that notion of minute detail and the examined life, as opposed to post colonial documentation, that brings us to our poem today. Love after love is a delicate and intricate examination of what it means to pick up the pieces of yourself in the wake of a tragedy. Poetry had always been a source of healing and emotional navigation for Walcott (Campbell, 2010) and this poem is a testament to that.
The speaker is delivering a message of hope in the wake of a tragedy. The first stanza is a reminder that even at a nadir, the lowest point, it will end:
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
That first line is a recognition that things are joy fantastic right now; the time will come. It's not here yet but there's
hope.
The second line chooses its nouns carefully, it's very brief but it promises a lot; when with elation . Your reprieve from misery will be no small thing, it will be a joyous occasion.
Following this there is an interesting duality established, a single person split into two:
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
Walcott writes of this splitting in two like a warm friendship. Not only will you greet yourself but you'll also find yourself smiling and welcoming this person. What is being described is an old friendship which is, of course, what any relationship with ourselves is.
The simplicity of life and the minutiae of the everyday, one of Walcott's great themes, is on display in full here. The opening of the door and glimpsing of oneself in the mirror is a daily occurrence all over the world. That beautiful sense of recognition, both in the mirror and in the welcome, shows how eventually, your hardship will pass and you'll come back to yourself.
Despite the gently reassuring inevitability of healing hinted at in the first line requires one key decision on your part: Compassion
Compassion by any other name is simply kindness. In the second stanza Walcott outlines this need for kindness by invoking one of the greatest symbols of hospitality; food. (Reece 1993)
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
It is a gentle invitation to nurture yourself. It's difficult to imagine, given his love of classics, that Walcott wasn't aware of the sacred obligation of hospitality in ancient Greek and Roman culture . (Reece,1993) In Greek myths, especially the works of Homer, it was so important that it was given a special name; Xenia. (Reece,1993)
In this poem, If you undertake your duty to yourself correctly, another promise is given:
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
There is a beautiful recognition of how trauma and heartbreak can shape us into someone we barely recognise.
There is more food shown to reassure us once more: give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself. That gentle lulling refrain of the verb give is a slow and steady call to action; compassion, compassion, compassion.
The heart being given back to itself is a natural oxymoron, an image that is redundant; how can a heart be given back to itself and yet there is a beauty to the loop, a comfort in knowing that this is not a herculean task but a simple one. They are after all one and the same.
The final image of this stanza; to the stranger who has loved you is once again used to reassure the reader. Even if you do not recognise yourself, your love for yourself has never waivered, perhaps been overlooked, but never gone. The stranger you no longer recognise has loved you nonetheless.
The notion of unconditional love leads us directly into the next stanza:
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
All your life is a reminder that the only person who’s always been there. It is a much more welcome version of the famous Orson Welles quote ‘’ "We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone.’’ (Jaglom, 1987). In Walcott’s imaging we can never truly be so.
More than that, this stanza recognises that endless self compassion is a fantasy, that it cannot be relentlessly practised whom you ignored for another. I’ve always taken the reading to be for a romantic kind of love but it could just as easily be substituted with any object of affection. There is a lovely nod to poetry itself in the simple statement; who knows you by heart.
The next reinforces that romantic reading, take down the love letters from the bookshelf. The recognition once again that literature and the written word can bring healing, and more recognition that this self-love has always been there. There is more comfort to be found in the cosy image of the bookshelf.
Walcott drives this message home with more synonymous imagery of romantic love in the final stanza:
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
When we are broken it can be hard to imagine a time we were not but these objects, full of nostalgia and longing; photographs of happier times and words of longing, serve to shine a light in the difficulty of heartbreak. There have been very happy times and there will be more.
The final two lines of the poem are the final reward of this practised self compassion, his command to peel your own image from the mirror, is a beautiful call-back to the simple smile in stanza one Now on the other side of misery you can merge with yourself and be whole again.
And then, one of my favourite lines in all of poetry: sit, feast on your life. The verb sit is another invitation to gentleness. That choice of verb feast is incredibly intentional; your existence is a banquet full of nourishment; always was and always will be
This poem on its surface is remarkably simple and only when we stop and examine it do we realise that Derek Walcott was a master of his craft. There is a constant and gentle sense of repetition both in terms of imagery and structure that carry the reader through the poem before they’ve even realised it's done.
Occasionally he does this in a single line give give give. Other times it is a similar image, slightly changed, an echo of something he’s already written; in your own mirror/ from the mirror.
Upon Walcott’s death his fellow poet and Contemporary Joseph Brodsky wrote:
"For almost forty years his throbbing and relentless lines kept arriving in the English language like tidal waves, coagulating into an archipelago of poems without which the map of modern literature would effectively match wallpaper. He gives us more than himself or “a world”; he gives us a sense of infinity embodied in the language." (Lea et al.)
There is a tidal quality to his work, a steady rhythm of waves gently reaching the shore repeating on indefinitely. His style perfectly embodies his message in the poem. Your compassion was always there and much like the low tide you may feel at times, there will always be new waves waiting to gently greet you.
What did you think of the poem? I’d like to point out as always , that this is my interpretation and as such very much up for debate. If you’d like to reach me or talk about it. There are a few ways you can do that:
There’s my website: www.wordsthatburnpodcast.com
Or on instagram @wordsthatburnpodcast
I’m also on Tiktok @wordsthatburnpodcast
The script for this episode complete with sources and citations are available on Substack at the link in description.
Please join me on the next episode where I’ll be looking at the poetry of Molly Twomey. Words that Burn is written and produced by me, Benjamin Collopy, thanks for listening once again.
Works Cited
Bellot, Gabrielle. “Derek Walcott: Poet of Twilight, Poet of the Caribbean.” Literary Hub, 20 March 2017, https://lithub.com/derek-walcott-poet-of-twilight-poet-of-the-caribbean/. Accessed 23 May 2023.
Campbell, Christian. “Derek Walcott interview on his life.” YouTube, 23 November 2010,
Accessed 9 May 2023.
Hutchinson, Ishion. “Derek Walcott and the Peculiar Disturbance of His Poetry (Published 2017).” The New York Times, 4 August 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/books/review/derek-walcott-caribbean.html. Accessed 9 May 2023.
Interview with Derek Walcott. 1987. Performance by Rudolf Von Bitter, 2012. Youtube,
Accessed 2023.
Jaglom, Henry, director. Someone To Love. 1987. IMDB, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094007/. Accessed 23 May 2023.
Lea, Richard, et al. “Nobel laureate, poet and playwright Derek Walcott dead, aged 87.” The Guardian, 17 March 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/17/nobel-laureate-poet-and-playwright-derek-walcott-dead-aged-87. Accessed 9 May 2023.
Reece, Steve. The stranger's welcome : oral theory and the aesthetics of the Homeric hospitality scene. University of Michigan Press, 1993.
Walcott, Derek, et al. “Image of Derek Walcott.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derek-walcott. Accessed 23 May 2023.