গোটা ক্যারিবিয় দ্বীপের মানুষ যখন গভীর ঘুমে থাকতেন, সূর্য ওঠার চার-পাঁচ ঘণ্টা আগে গুম থেকে জাগতেন ওয়ালকট। তারপর ক্যাথোলিক কায়দায় প্রেয়ার করতেন, তারপর লিখতে বসতেন। ওয়ালকটের মতে, অন্যরা ঘুম থেকে জাগার আগেই আমি অতিরিক্ত চার-পাঁচঘণ্টা নিজের ক্রিয়েটিভ কাজ সেরে নিতাম। যে কারণে ভোররাতের লেখাগুলো অনেকটা প্রেয়ার পয়ার ঢংয়ে লেখা। পাঠকের মনে হবে যে ক্যারিবিয় দ্বীপের বাসিন্দারা বুঝিবা এই মন্ত্র পড়েই নিজেদের দিন শুরু করে।
নিজের মেথোডিজম সম্প্রদায় সম্পর্কে ওয়ালকট বলেন, ”In a private way, I think I still have a very simple, straightforward foursquare Methodism in me. I admire the quiet, pragmatic reason that is there in a faith like Methodism, which is a very practical thing of conduct. I’m not talking about a fanatical fundamentalism. I suppose the best word for it is decency. Decency and understanding are what I’ve learned from being a Methodist. Always, one was responsible to God for one’s inner conduct and not to any immense hierarchy of angels and saints. In a way I think I tried to say that in some earlier poems. There’s also a very strong sense of carpentry in Protestantism, in making things simply and in a utilitarian way. At this period of my life and work, I think of myself in a way as a carpenter, as one making frames, simply and well. I’m working a lot in quatrains, or I have been, and I feel that there is something in that that is very ordinary, you know, without any mystique. I’m trying to get rid of the mystique as much as possible. And so I find myself wanting to write very simply cut, very contracted, very speakable, and very challenging quatrains in rhymes. Any other shape seems ornate, an elaboration on that essential cube that really is the poem. So we can then say the craft is as ritualistic as that of a carpenter putting down his plane and measuring his stanzas and setting them squarely. And the frame becomes more important than the carpenter.”
মাত্র চৌদ্দ বছর বয়সে ওয়ালকটের প্রথম কবিতা “The Voice of St. Lucia,” প্রকাশিত হয়। কবিতাটি সম্পর্কে ওয়ালকট বলেন, ”I wrote a poem talking about learning about God through nature and not through the church. The poem was Miltonic and posed nature as a way to learn. I sent it to the local papers and it was printed. Of course, to see your work in print for any younger writer is a great kick. And then the paper printed a letter in which a priest replied (in verse!) stating that what I was saying was blasphemous and that the proper place to find God was in church. For a young boy to get that sort of response from a mature older man, a priest who was an Englishman, and to be accused of blasphemy was a shock. What was a more chastising thing was that the response was in verse. The point of course was to show me that he was also capable of writing verse. He did his in couplets and mine was in blank verse. I would imagine if I looked at both now that mine was better.”
লেখক: কথাসাহিত্যিক ও নির্মাতা