Founding a Language: Derek Walcott and Omeros

By so many systems As we are involved in, by just so many Are we set free on an ocean of language... John Ashbery, “A Wave” 2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Derek Walcott’s narrative poem, Omeros, which resituates Homeric epic in the contemporary Caribbean, following the trials of its hero, Achille (who is as much an Odysseus as he is an Achilles), his lover, Helen, and his rival, Hector, along with the travails of a score of other characters. Perhaps most pertinently, th..