Editing Derek Walcott (section)

==Early life and childhood==
Walcott was born and raised in [[Castries]], [[Saint Lucia]], in the [[West Indies]], the son of Alix (Maarlin) and Warwick Walcott.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Mayer |first=Jane |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/02/09/the-islander |title=The Islander |magazine=The New Yorker |date=9 February 2004 |access-date=20 March 2017 |archive-date=9 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190109011427/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/02/09/the-islander |url-status=live }}</ref> He had a twin brother, the playwright [[Roderick Walcott]], and a sister, Pamela Walcott. His family is of English, Dutch and African descent, reflecting the complex colonial history of the island that he explores in his poetry. His mother, a teacher, loved the arts and often recited poetry around the house.<ref Name="Paris Review">[[Edward Hirsch]], [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2719/the-art-of-poetry-no-37-derek-walcott "Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120915082637/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2719/the-art-of-poetry-no-37-derek-walcott |date=15 September 2012 }}, ''[[The Paris Review]]'', Issue 101, Winter 1986.</ref> His father was a [[civil servant]] and a talented painter. He died when Walcott and his brother were one year old, and were left to be raised by their mother. Walcott was brought up in Methodist schools. His mother, who was a teacher at a Methodist elementary school, provided her children with an environment where their talents could be nurtured.<ref>Puchner, Martin. ''The Norton Anthology of World Literature''. 4th ed., f, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.</ref> Walcott's family was part of a minority [[Methodist]] community, who felt overshadowed by the dominant Catholic culture of the island established during French colonial rule.<ref name=Grimes>{{cite news|last1=Grimes|first1=William|title=Derek Walcott, Poet and Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/books/derek-walcott-dead-nobel-prize-literature.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/books/derek-walcott-dead-nobel-prize-literature.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited|access-date=18 March 2017|newspaper=The New York Times|date=17 March 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

As a young man Walcott trained as a painter, mentored by [[Harold Simmons (folklorist)|Harold Simmons]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stluciafolk.org/folkPersonalities/view/18|title=Harold Simmons|publisher=Folk Research Centre|location=St Lucia|access-date=23 August 2015|archive-date=28 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428003956/http://www.stluciafolk.org/folkPersonalities/view/18|url-status=live}}</ref> whose life as a professional artist provided an inspiring example for him.  Walcott greatly admired [[Cézanne]] and [[Giorgione]] and sought to learn from them.<ref name="Paris Review" /> Walcott's painting was later exhibited at the [[Anita Shapolsky Gallery]] in New York City, along with the art of other writers, in a 2007 exhibition named ''The Writer's Brush: Paintings and Drawing by Writers''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-writers-brush/|title=The Writer's Brush|date=16 December 2007|work=CBS News|access-date=21 March 2015|archive-date=22 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422121410/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-writers-brush/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.anitashapolskygallery.com/past_exhibits_writers.html|title=The Writer's Brush; September 11 – October 27, 2007|work=Anita Shapolsky Gallery|location=New York City|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150201060315/http://www.anitashapolskygallery.com/past_exhibits_writers.html|archive-date=1 February 2015}}</ref>

He studied as a writer, becoming "an elated, exuberant poet madly in love with English" and strongly influenced by modernist poets such as [[T. S. Eliot]] and [[Ezra Pound]].<ref name=pf/> Walcott had an early sense of a vocation as a writer. In the poem "Midsummer" (1984), he wrote:

<blockquote><poem>
Forty years gone, in my island childhood, I felt that 
the gift of poetry had made me one of the chosen, 
that all experience was kindling to the fire of the Muse.<ref name="Paris Review" /></poem></blockquote>

At 14, Walcott published his first poem, a [[John Milton|Miltonic]], religious poem, in the newspaper ''The Voice of St Lucia''. An English Catholic priest condemned the Methodist-inspired poem as blasphemous in a response printed in the newspaper.<ref name="Paris Review" /> By 19, Walcott had self-published his first two collections with the aid of his mother, who paid for the printing: ''25 Poems'' (1948) and ''Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos'' (1949).  He sold copies to his friends and covered the costs.<ref Name="Academy">{{cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220|title=Derek Walcott|website=poets.org|publisher=Academy of American Poets|date=4 February 2014|access-date=29 December 2010|archive-date=10 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110310130930/http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220|url-status=live}}</ref> He later commented:

<blockquote>I went to my mother and said, "I'd like to publish a book of poems, and I think it's going to cost me two hundred dollars." She was just a seamstress and a schoolteacher, and I remember her being very upset because she wanted to do it. Somehow she got it—a lot of money for a woman to have found on her salary. She gave it to me, and I sent off to [[Trinidad]] and had the book printed. When the books came back I would sell them to friends. I made the money back.<ref name="Paris Review" /></blockquote>

The influential Bajan poet [[Frank Collymore]] critically supported Walcott's early work.<ref name="Paris Review" />

After attending high school at [[Saint Mary's College (Saint Lucia)|Saint Mary's College]], he received a scholarship to study at the [[University College of the West Indies]] in [[Kingston, Jamaica]].<ref Name="British Council">{{cite web|url=http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=authC2D9C28A0a4dc1BE88LsX2F7F9A1|title=Derek Walcott – British Council Literature|author=British Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 4th ed., f, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.Council|work=contemporarywriters.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110104042528/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=authC2D9C28A0a4dc1BE88LsX2F7F9A1|archive-date=4 January 2011}}</ref>