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Ma Kilman's Bar This is an extract from a book-length poem, Omeros, by Derek Walcott. Derek Walcott was born and grew up in St Lucia in the Caribbean. In this extract, he describes a small bar and some of the people who live in the village. A 'pirogue' is a canoe carved from a tree-trunk, typical of this area. |
from Omeros
by Derek Walcott
Ma Kilman had the oldest bar in the village.
Its gingerbread balcony had mustard gables
with green trim round the eaves, the paint wrinkled with age.
In the cabaret downstairs there were wooden tables
for the downslap of dominoes. A bead curtain
tinkled every time she came through it. A neon
sign endorsed Coca-Cola under the NO PAIN
CAFÉ ALL WELCOME. The NO PAIN was not her own
idea, but her dead husband's. "Is a prophecy,"
Ma Kilman would laugh. A hot street led to the beach
past the small shops and the clubs and a pharmacy
in whose angling shade, his khaki dog on a leash,
the blind man sat on his crate after the pirogues
set out, muttering the dark language of the blind,
gnarled hands on his stick, his ears as sharp as the dog's.
1. Explain as well as you can the effectiveness of the adjectives 'gingerbread' and 'mustard' in line two.
2. 'Downslap' is not a word you'd find in a dictionary. What do you think it means and why is it effective here?
3. What impression does Walcott give of Ma Kilman's personality?
4. Think about the blind man. What would he hear at Ma Kilman's bar? What is the effect of that last simile?
5. How does Derek Walcott create a sense of the Caribbean in this short piece?