Here’s a detailed analysis of Derek Walcott’s poem ‘Landfall, Grenada’; it’s tailored towards students taking the CIE / Cambridge A-Level syllabus but will be useful for anyone who’s working on understanding the poem at any level.
Great for revision, missed lessons, boosting analytic...
Landfall, Grenada
(for Robert Head, Mariner)
Derek Wallcot
“Its moods held no mythology
for you, it was a working-place”
VOCABULARY
Landfall - the moment of arriving on land after travelling by sea or air / alternatively
a rockslide
Mariner - a sailor who spends much of their life working at sea
Rigidly - stiffly / firmly
Anchored - tethered or weighed down in order to create a sense of stability,
especially referring to a ship at sea
Groundswell - a large swelling of the sea, or a strong increase in a particular opinion
within society
Foothills - small hills at the base of a mountain range
Canes - sea canes, a type of tall grassy plant that grows by the sea -
Surging - moving upwards or forwards with great energy
Cumuli - the plural of ‘cumulus’, a type of fluffy cloud
Seamless - without visible seams (edges or lines where two things join together)
Tiered - presented in levels or rows
Grandeur - richness, opulence, impressiveness (here used in the plural ‘grandeurs’,
meaning many rich or impressive things)
Mythology - a set of stories with deep moral messages, usually those which have
been retold over a period of time and become part of the culture of a particular group
of people
Tonnage - the weight of something, measured in tons
Harboured - to keep something securely or safely, also to literally dock a ship in a
harbour
Strenuous - hard or difficult, requiring a lot effort or time
Reticence - shyness, quietness, reluctance
Rites - religious acts and rituals
Impose - to force or take advantage of something or someone (negative connotations
of dominance and being overbearing)
Tolerance - the act of bearing or putting up with something difficult
Elegies - poems written to commemorate the dead
, STORY / SUMMARY
Stanza 1: The speaker talks directly to the addressee of the poem - Robert Head. He
says that where the man is now, it’s impossible to hear the swelling of the sea, which
makes ‘blue foothills’ as it swells and flows. He can neither hear nor see the way in
which the seeds of the sea canes that grow by the water’s edge blow in the wind and
collect into ‘cumuli’ - fluffy clouds. Like the slow, constant movement of the ocean, a
single ‘motion’ (he may be referring to either the movement of air, or time) ripples over
the grass that grows over Head’s grave. The tiered sea climbs out of sound - Head
detested its ‘grandeurs’.
Stanza 2: The sea was not mythological or spiritual for Head, as Walcott himself may
think of it; instead, it was a workplace. He chose the point where he touched down to
earth - his ‘landfall’, his death - with a ‘casual certainty’. This was the same way in
which he conducted his life as a mariner - calmly and quite sure of himself. The
speaker observes that he was as ‘calm as the race / into whose heart he harboured’,
suggesting that his easy going nature made him well liked and accepted into
Caribbean culture - originally an English sailor, he must have settled in the Caribbean
(see context for more info). His death was a ‘log’s entry’, just a date that was recorded
into the ship’s log (the professional records that are kept in certain jobs). The suffering
that the man endured was quiet and internal, as if he kept his own spiritual beliefs to
himself. The speaker says he was a ‘deep friend’ - very close - and asks him for his
wisdom; he wants to learn too how to let go of life so easily, to mock elegies rather
than taking them seriously.
SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker appears to be Walcott himself, who writes an elegiac poem to
commemorate the death of his friend Robert Head. It’s almost as if Walcott envies
the man’s simplicity, something that he could never have himself because of his over
analytical mind that has a tendency to find ‘mythology’ and allegory everywhere he
looks. There is a strong sense of peacefulness and ease to the poem, which likely
reflects the personality of Head himself and also the sense that he is now resting in
peace.
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