Tiepolo's Hound

by Derek Walcott

A magnificent, semi-autobiographical sequence from a Nobel Prize-winning poet, Tiepolo's Hound joins the quests of two Caribbean Camille Pissarro - a Sephardic Jew born in 1830 who leaves his native St. Thomas to become a painter in Paris - and the poet himself, who longs to rediscover the detail of a painting encountered on an early visit from St. Lucia to New York. Published with 25 full-colour reproductions of Derek Walcott's own paintings, the poem is at once the spiritual biography of a great artist in self-imposed exile, a history in verse of Impressionist painting, and a memoir of the poet's desire to catch the visual world in more than words.

Genres: Poetry, Art

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Derek Walcott was a Caribbean poet, playwright, writer and visual artist. Born in Castries, St. Lucia, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 "for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment."

His work, which developed independently of the schools of magic realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. He was best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond to the American West and London.

Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remained active with its Board of Directors until his death. He also founded Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981. In 2004, Walcott was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, and had retired from teaching poetry and drama in the Creative Writing Department at Boston University by 2007. He continued to give readings and lectures throughout the world after retiring. He divided his time between his home in the Caribbean and New York City.

Reviews

[Anne]

Walcott takes the reader on an adventure to find Tiepolo's Hound. Every page is filled with Walcott's visual and poetic art, and you are catapulted into the stories of Tiepolo and the world that he created through his paint brush.

[Megan]

Challenging but worth the effort.

[Rani]

Omigod. This is simply beautiful and beautifully simple! I keep reading and reading this, and have this book always ready next to my bed.

[andré crombie]

Vernacular shallows muttered under bridges
on whose banks cane lances fluttered as the sail

of a wading egret rose towards the ridges
of mountain ferns until the roof grew small.

[Daisybirch]

To quote Woolf, ‘Is there really any sense in it? I admit I can’t be bothered to snuff out his meaning when it’s very obscure.’ Perhaps I’ll give it another go, or know to devote more time and attention to his other work.

[Nic]

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Walcott is a true poetic artist. I was moved by this brilliant epic poem.

[Dann Zinke]

Book was only 164 pages. Not as gripping as Omeros, but some of the poetic imagery was superb, as you would expect from Walcott.

[Zubyre Parvez]

Classical painting explored from the point of view of being mixed race (of Greek and Jamaican origins) a true individual, with wit and brilliance.

[Albert]

The paintings give a nice insight into his engagement with that perspective. Check out videos of him reading. He has a great sense of humor that doesn't really come across in his work.

[Restaurant Junkie]

I won't lie; this one wasn't easy to get through. Yet, I did pick it up for a bit of a challenge, and I'm happier for the journey. This poetry uses words as both the paintbrush and the paint. I often found myself looking up unfamiliar words, which I don't frequently do. This is a language-laden love letter (and the paintings are good, too).

I started reading it, attempting to grasp the threads and follow the narrative. When I couldn't, I took them in as tiny, independent couplet jewels and was still entertained.

This is a book I could see myself just picking up and reading random lines for inspiration.

[Matthew Mann]

Dereck Walcott is magic!

[Lew]

I parodied this in my novel Uncorrected Proof (see http://elephantearspress.com/uncorrec... )

[Lex Poot]

In the tradition of Walt Whitman writes Derek Walcott