Winnona Elson's Links to Information about Omeros and Derek Walcott

LIT 2090 Summer 1998

For a general overview of St. Lucia from a reliable (depending on your political assumptions), try the U.S. Government's CIA Factbook. It is listed under Saint Lucia. I've looked up countries before on this site and like the straightforward format.

CIA World Factbook 1997. <http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/country.html> (6 July 1998).

An interesting site that talks about the socioeconomic issues with rice production in the Carribean and Central America is the "RiceWeb" site. Apparently rice is the staple crop in Latin America, as well as the Carribean. To quote, "Poor urban dwellers spend about 15% of their income on whiterice--their cheapest source of energy, carbohydrates, and protein. Their wellbeing is therefore affected by the amount, quality, security of supply, and price of the rice they eat." (Geography.) This article goes on to tell how if people's money supply increases, they spend it on food, not luxuries--they are just that close to the edge.

Geography: Regional Overviews. 1 April 1997. <http://www.riceweb.org/g_overlatin.htm> (6 July 1998).

A good site to use as a starting point for information on the Caribbean is"Caribbean Studies." It has links to all sorts of information, including some interesting ones on voodoo and other island religions. This could be very useful if you're writing about religion in the region.

Caribbean Studies. <http://www.hist.unt.edu/09w-blk4.htm> (6 July 1998).

For some beautiful shots of St. Lucia, the site below doesn't have many, but they are gorgeous. Makes me want to vacation there. This site gives a good description of the islands themselves.

Preview Travel Vacations--Caribbean--St. Lucia <http://www.vacations.com/Vacations/Caribbean/St-lucia/Editorial/index.html> (3 July 1998).

One of the sites I came up with I almost passed up--it was a curriculum vitae page! However, it is through Brooklyn CUNY and links to an article that the author--John B. Van Sickle wrote for the LA Times. This is a nice site with photos, too.

Van Sickle, John B. A Poet's St. Lucia. 24 March 1998 .<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/> (30 June 1998).

The Greek History Primer gives a lot of information. The contents of this site includes history, politics, Homer, mythology, art, etc. This is about a 25-page site, but it is all in short bites, so it is a good one to get a feelof what Homer and Greece is all about.

Greek History Primer. 7 May 1998. <http://www.hri.org/GAFS/history/html> (6 July 1998).

Another neat site I found through Yahoo is Foundations of Western Literature: On-line Handbook of Background Material. This site discusses Homer and his epic poetry. This is a short site, so if you don't have the patience for the previous site, try this one to get an overview of the setting and the poet.

Foundations of Western Literature: On-Line Handbook of Background Material. <http://jbworld.jbs.st-lous.mo/us/classics/fwl/Homer/homer_background.html> (6 July 1998).

On a slightly different tangent, I found an article about ancient Sparta, Greece. I am curious to see if anything in their culture is also evident in Walcott's book. Whereas, the other historical information deals more with the mythology, this deals more with the reality of ancient Greek warriors.

Ober, Josiah. Sparta: The Evil Empire. <http://www.thehistorynet.com/MHQ/articles/1998/sum98_text.htm> (6 July 1998).

I did some research on sites on postcolonialism, since that is one theme of Walcott's work. I found a really intense site through Yahoo!. This is a grouped site. You need to scroll down through it to find the area you're interested in. There are multiple documents in here--and they are long! So if you're looking for something in depth, try this site.

Yahoo! - Arts: Humanities: Literature: Criticism and Theory: Postcolonialism. 4 May 1998. <http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Literature/Criticism_and_Theory/Postcolonialism/> (3 July 1998).

Another site on postcolonialism that I didn't get into too far gave a list of related themes. This might stimulate some ideas for report papers. It also has connecting links that get into it pretty deeply and also route into additional themes.

Image, Symbol, and Motif in Postcolonial Literature and Critical Theory: An Overview. 4 May 1998. <http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/post/poldiscourse/symbolov.html> (3 July 1998).

My favorite site on postcolonialism deals directly with Derek Walcott and Omeros. It is not terribly in-depth, but it does raise some interesting questions on Walcott's choice of using Homer's work as a frame for his own.

Derek Walcott and the Post-Colonical Critic. <http://www.gettysburg.edu/~s448769/wb.htm> (3 July 1998).

  One last site on postcolonialism discusses Walcott's "Crusoe's Island." It doesn't directly relate to Omeros, but if you are researching this topic, it has some interesting observations in it.

McCorkle, James. Colonialism, Gender, and Lyric Identity: Refigurations of Crusoe in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and Derek Walcott. 21 August 1996. <http://www.iberia.vassar.edu/bishop/McCorkle.html> (30 June 1998).

I also tried searching for articles on black culture that would relate to this area. I found an interesting, but lengthy essay using the game of cricket juxtaposed to colonialism. It got too lengthy for me, but it does have a lot of information that may be useful if you are researching that subject.

Callaloo, Diawara. Englishness and Blackness: Cricket as Discourse on Colonialism. 13 March 1997. <http://www.tiac.net/users/thalett/m_diawara/callaloo.html> (30 June 1998).

  On a different tangent, I found a site titled, Prominent People of Caribbean Heritage. This site list people from artists, writers, politicians, etc. One person listed is Marcus Garvey who established the UNIA--Universal Negro Improvement Association. He is also listed in some of the web sites on Toni Morrison's work, so that might be an interesting connection to her work thematically.

Prominent People of Caribbean Heritage. <http://www.siu.edu/~carib/people.html> (3 July 1998).

Brown University has some really great sites--including one on Caribbean authors with follow-up links. This site has a short biography of Derek Walcott and some good papers on the book itself. I highly recommend this site and its connecting links.

Literature of the Caribbean: Caribbean Authors. <http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/post/caribbean/authors.html> (3 July 1998).

I found a lot of miscellaneous information out there, as well. (Did you know that Walcott had been accused of sexual harrassment? I hope he's innocent--I don't want to believe he's not.) There is actually a book available out there that is about Omeros--Epic of the Dispossessed. The book review is worth a quick peak.

University of Missouri Press Fall/Winter 1997 Books. 13 May 1997. <http://www.system.missouri.edu/upress/fall1997/fall1997.htm> (2 July 1998).

An interesting opinion article on the development in the Caribbean by Holger Henke is located in the following site. This also has links to other articles, so if you're looking for political intrigue, try this site. By searching around and browsing in here, I found that apparently Cuba is quite involved politically with other the other countries in this region. Somehow, I have this blind concept of Cuba existing on its own, with only Soviet connections. It's surprising how narrow minded one can get when we only read our own newspapers!

Henke, Holger. Opinion: The Biggest Myth About Development in the Caribbean. <http://pw1.netcom.com/~hhenke/news1.htm> (6 July 1998).

I'm going to end with a site I loved. It is a connection through the "Mining Company." If you search in through it, it leads you to several articles in the New York Times on Walcott. You have to sign in to their site, but it there isn't supposed to be a fee associated--at the present time, anyway.

Rettberg, Scott. Caribbean Writers--Feature: 8/15/97. 30 April 1998. <http://authors.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa081597.htm> (28 June 1998).

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