How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #10
Why not see Helen/as the sun saw her, with no Homeric shadow,/swinging her plastic sandals on that beach alone,/as fresh as the sea-wind? Why make the smoke a door? (LIV.ii.271)
Once again, Walcott questions his intentions, as well as those of his character, Major Plunkett. Why bother with the associations? Does it help Helen and her people? His answer: Not really, but I see the associations—so there.
Quote #11
When would the sails drop/from my eyes, when would I not hear the Trojan War/in two fishermen cursing in Ma Kilman's shop?/When would my head shake off its echoes like a horse/shaking off a wreath of flies? When would it stop,/the echo in the throat, insisting, "Omeros";/when would I enter that light beyond metaphor? (LIV.iii.271)
Walcott is essentially asking himself when he will cease to see the world through a poet's eyes or hear the voices of his people with a poet's ears. The answer is never.
Quote #12
Your wanderer is a phantom from the boy's shore./Mark you, he does not go; he sends his narrator;/he plays tricks with time because there are two journeys/in every odyssey, one on the worried water,/the other crouched and motionless, without noise./For both, "I" is a mast; a desk is a raft/for one, foaming with paper, and dipping the beak/of a pen in its foam, while an actual craft/carries the other to cities where people speak/a different language, or look at him differently (LVIII.ii.291)
Seven Seas/Omeros sets the narrator straight about the fiction of a first-person narrator as hero of the story. This is also a commentary on the purpose of narrative: It's not necessarily meant to report a true account of adventures. The real story is about the poet reflecting truth as he sees it with his "inner eyes."