Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Derek Walcott's "Midsummer: 30" is a richly layered reflection on exile, identity, and the complexities of navigating a city that feels both familiar and alien. The poem juxtaposes vivid images of Boston’s historical and literary past with the speaker’s own sense of displacement. Through the use of classical and transcendental references, Walcott meditates on how style, culture, and race intersect in the urban landscape, where the remnants of colonialism and history still shape the present.

The poem begins with an image of "Gold dung and urinous straw from the horse garages," immediately grounding the reader in a visceral, tactile experience of the city. This opening line sets up a tension between the grandeur and elegance of Boston’s elite and the grittier, more material realities of urban life. The "click-clop of hooves sparking cold cobblestone" and the "bricked-in carriage yards" evoke a historical Boston, where the city’s upper class traveled in horse-drawn carriages, exuding wealth and status. However, the imagery of dung and urine undercuts this elegance, hinting at the hidden, often overlooked elements of city life.

Walcott then introduces the idea of "transcendental Boston," a reference to the intellectual and literary movement led by figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The "tasselled black hansoms trotting under elms" add to the sense of an old, grand Boston, but they also evoke a bygone era, one that the speaker seems detached from. The "tilting their crops to the shade of Henry James" suggests a world of refined, literary culture, where figures like James—known for his complex novels about society and morality—loom large. However, the speaker feels a distance from this literary heritage, as though he is observing a world he cannot fully access or belong to.

The poem’s sense of exile becomes more pronounced as the speaker states, "I return to the city of my exile down Storrow Drive." Storrow Drive, a major roadway in Boston, becomes a symbol of the speaker’s journey back to a place that holds personal significance but also reminds him of his displacement. The "split seraphs flying en face" in the tunnel add a surreal, almost divine element to the scene, as if the speaker is moving through a liminal space where angels and sorrow coexist. The phrase "finite sorrow" suggests that the speaker’s sense of exile and disconnection has boundaries, yet it is still deeply felt.

As the speaker continues through the city, "blocks long as paragraphs pass in a style to which I'm not accustomed." Here, Walcott draws a parallel between the city’s architecture and language, suggesting that Boston’s grandeur and historical significance are like long, complex paragraphs—structured, formal, and perhaps inaccessible to someone who feels out of place. The speaker’s admission that he is "not accustomed" to this style reflects a sense of alienation, as though the city’s cultural codes and symbols do not align with his own experiences or identity.

Walcott expands on this theme of alienation with the lines, "since, if I were, I would have been costumed / to drape the cloaks of couples who arrive / for dinner." This metaphor of costume and performance suggests that the speaker feels like an outsider in this world of privilege and refinement. If he were truly a part of this society, he would be playing the role of a servant, draping cloaks for the elite as they attend their elegant dinners. The imagery of the "glasses" catching "the transcendental clustered lights" and "twirling with perceptions" emphasizes the intellectual and aesthetic refinement of these gatherings, yet the speaker remains on the margins, excluded from this world of privilege.

The line "Style is character" marks a turning point in the poem, as the speaker reflects on how external appearances—style, culture, manners—define one’s place in society. The speaker’s own identity is shaped by the city’s architecture, as "my forehead crusts like brick, my sockets char / like a burnt brownstone in the Negro Quarter." This striking image links the speaker’s body to the physical landscape of Boston, specifically the "Negro Quarter," a reference to the historically black neighborhoods in the city. The burnt brownstone symbolizes both destruction and resilience, suggesting that the speaker’s identity is marked by the legacy of racial oppression but also by endurance and survival.

As the poem moves toward its conclusion, the speaker describes a fog that "obscures the Boston Common," one of the city’s central parks, and the "old gas standards" on Beacon Hill, a historically wealthy area. The fog serves as a metaphor for the blurring of history and the present, as well as for the speaker’s own uncertainty about his place in the city. The gaslights "stutter to save their period," indicating that the past is struggling to maintain its relevance in the face of modernity and change.

The final image of the poem is both haunting and profound: the speaker sees "a black coachman, / with gloves as white as his white-ankled horse," counting "their laughter, their lamplit good nights." The black coachman, who drives a "brass-handled hearse," is a powerful symbol of racial inequality and the servitude that has historically defined the roles of black people in elite, white society. The contrast between his white gloves and the hearse he drives suggests that even in this world of refinement, death and loss are ever-present. The coachman’s role is to serve the wealthy, to observe their happiness from the periphery, and then to carry the weight of death—symbolized by the hearse—on their behalf.

In "Midsummer: 30," Derek Walcott captures the deep sense of exile and alienation felt by someone who navigates a world of privilege, history, and intellectual tradition that remains inaccessible. The poem’s rich imagery of Boston’s streets, architecture, and cultural heritage serves as a backdrop for the speaker’s reflections on race, identity, and displacement. Through his meditation on the city and its history, Walcott highlights the complex intersections of race, class, and culture, ultimately suggesting that the past continues to shape the present, often in ways that remain unacknowledged or obscured.

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