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The Omeros

Location: Site 39, North of Derek Walcott Square, Castries, St. Lucia
Research

In 1992 the Castries-born poet and playwright Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize for

literature, two years after publishing the epic poem "Omeros”. Walcott was Saint Lucia’s

second Nobel Prize winner after Sir Arthur Lewis, who won the prize for economics in 1979.
Design Intent 39

The aim of the Multifunctional Literary Museum is to promote knowledge about literature
T
and its role in St. Lucian society. Literature is important to St. Lucian history as Castries-born

poet Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Museum acquires, preserves
and communicates his literature through Architecture/Architectural language while

facilitating teaching and learning in an artistic atmosphere. “Omeros” is concerned with

the link between the past and present.

The name was bent like the trees on the precipice to point inland
December road where the Comet hurtled with empty leopard seats

graceless and as treacherous as it had seemed
We were climbing out of Micoud

mist slowly erased the royal palms on the crests of the hills and the hills themselves
breeze so fresh it lifted the lace curtains like a petticoat
One side of the coast plunges its precipices into the Atlantic
graceless and as treacherous as it had seemed
breeze so fresh it lifted the lace curtains like a petticoat
The breeze threshed the palms on the cool

He’d paid the penalty of giving up the sea
I watched the sea
I watched the afternoon sea
Art is History’s nostalgia, it prefers a thatched
roof to a concrete factory
I watched the afternoon sea