Terence Zhu

Cassidy Picken

Engl 100

Oct-18-2019

“The Sea is History” close reading

Human history begins with the sea, and will eventually be taken back by the sea. This is the main idea that had formed while I was reading Derek Walcott’s  poem, “The Sea Is History”. The reason I came to this conclusion is because throughout the poem, we see Walcott go back and forth about the things locked up by the sea and the beginnings of things that include a body of water. We can also see that Walcott labels certain times where events occur as a false history, saying that “it was not History”(line 51). Ironically, Walcott decided to put the true beginning of history at the end. Furthermore, he continues to include an aspect of the ends of eras in segments of the poem.

A good example of how Walcott explains the beginning of history is with lines 65-80. However, the lines between 77-80 had the most impact, “and in the salt chuckles of rocks, with their sea pools, there was a sound, like a rumor without any echo, of History, really beginning” (lines 77-80). Within these last lines, there is imagery of everything. The speculated beginning without any echo, shows us that there is no solid evidence of how we came, just speculations as the sea covers it all. As well as “the salt chuckles of rock with their sea pools” (lines 77-78) being what I can only imagine as the sea laughing at how all of us on land caring of what amounts to a pool of nothing. Something that only scratches the surface of what we falsely call ‘history’.

An interesting thing that is found within Walcott’s poem is how he ties everything up in the end leaving it clear that there really is a water wheel that happens in life. Despite what others say on how history starts and ends, Walcott makes sure to clear it up and tie it into his own metaphor on life. That History will eventually be drowned out by other stories, but always know that we return to where we once came from, the sea, our History.