Derek Walcott Square (formerly Columbus Square) is a public square and park located in central Castries, Saint Lucia.
The square is bounded by Bourbon, Brazil, Laborie and Micoud Streets.
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the Castries Central Library are located at the square. [1]
The square was previously named Place d'Armes and Promenade Square. It was named Columbus Square in 1892. In 1993, it was named Derek Walcott Square after the Nobel laureate Derek Walcott. [2]
Sir Derek Alton Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the University of Alberta's first distinguished scholar in residence, where he taught undergraduate and graduate writing courses. He also served as Professor of Poetry at the University of Essex from 2010 to 2013. His works include the Homeric epic poem Omeros (1990), which many critics view "as Walcott's major achievement." In addition to winning the Nobel Prize, Walcott received many literary awards over the course of his career, including an Obie Award in 1971 for his play Dream on Monkey Mountain, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, the Queen's Medal for Poetry, the inaugural OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize for his book of poetry White Egrets and the Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry Lifetime Recognition Award in 2015.
Saint Lucia is an island country in the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. The island was previously called Iyonola, the name given to the island by the native Arawaks, and later Hewanorra, the name given by the native Caribs, two separate Amerindian peoples. Part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 617 km2 and reported a population of 165,595 in the 2010 census. Its capital is Castries. Soufrière was colonized by the French and was the original capital of the island.
Saint Lucia is one of many small land masses composing the insular group known as the Windward Islands. Unlike large limestone areas such as Florida, Cuba, and the Yucatan Peninsula, or the Bahamas, which is a small island group composed of coral and sand, St. Lucia is a typical Windward Island formation of volcanic rock that came into existence long after much of the region had already been formed.
Castries, population 20,000, aggl. 53,639, is the capital and largest city of Saint Lucia, an island country in the Caribbean. The district with the same name had a population of 70,000 on 22 May 2013 and stretches over an area of 80 km2 (31 sq mi).
The St. Lucia Jazz Festival is an annual event on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia that brings together local and international musicians. The festival presents jazz, R&B, and Calypso music.
Castries District is one of 10 districts of the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia. According to the 2012 census, the population of the district was 80,573, having shown a slow but steady increase over the past ten years. The capital of Saint Lucia, the city of Castries, is located in this district. During the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival, the city of Castries plays host to several stages.
Dame Marie Selipha Descartes, DBE, SLMM, BEM, best known as Sesenne, was a Saint Lucian singer and cultural icon. Singing in her native patois language, at a time when authorities barred its use, Sesenne developed a wide following in the rural area in which she grew up. Patronage by St. Lucia's first woman legislator led to the singer's "discovery" by a cultural preservationist, who in turn introduced Sesenne to an American anthropologist to make recordings of her songs.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Castries is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the Caribbean. The archdiocese consists of the entirety of the former British dependency of Saint Lucia and is a metropolitan see, the suffragans of the Castries Province being the Dioceses of Roseau, Saint George's in Grenada, St. John's-Basseterre and Kingstown. The archdiocese is a member of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.
The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, located in Derek Walcott Square, Castries, Saint Lucia, is the seat of the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Castries, currently Robert Rivas. The cathedral is named after Mary, mother of Jesus, under her title, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
Babonneau is one of the regions of the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia. Babonneau is located in the north of the island in the Castries Quarter. There are extensive rain forests in the region, which is an important source of fresh water for Saint Lucia. Babonneau is also an electoral constituency of Saint Lucia represented in the House of Assembly of Saint Lucia, which extends into Gros Islet District.
Cooper Square is a junction of streets in Lower Manhattan, New York City located at the confluence of the neighborhoods of Bowery to the south, NoHo to the west and southwest, Greenwich Village to the west and northwest, the East Village to the north and east, and the Lower East Side to the southeast.
Saint Lucia, an island nation in the Caribbean islands, has a relatively large and lucrative tourism industry. Due to the relatively small land area of the country, most of the governmental promotion is performed by the state-operated Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, led by Executive Chairperson Agnes.
Morne Fortune is a hill and residential area located south of Castries, Saint Lucia, in the West Indies.
Saint Mary's College is an all-male Catholic secondary school located at Vigie, Saint Lucia in the Caribbean. The school is the only St. Lucian secondary school to have produced a Nobel Laureate, producing the island's two Nobel laureates: Sir William Arthur Lewis and Derek Alton Walcott. The jurist and politician Sir Vincent Floissac was also a pupil at the school, as was John Compton, former Prime Minister of St. Lucia, and St. Lucia's former Ambassador to the United Nations.
Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama is a play by Derek Walcott. It was commissioned by the University of the West Indies for the opening of the First Federal Parliament of the West Indies on 23 April 1958, when the play was first performed in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in an open-air production involving actors and personnel from other parts of the Caribbean as part of a regional arts festival to celebrate the new West Indies Federation. Drums and Colours was published in a special issue of Caribbean Quarterly in 1961.
Roderick Aldon Walcott, OBE, was a St Lucian playwright, screenwriter, painter, theatre director, costume and set designer, lyricist and literary editor. As a dramatist he "has been recognised as one of the most committed figures in the effort to develop a distinctive Caribbean theatre in the region". He was the twin brother of Nobel laureate Derek Walcott.
The Castries Market and Vendor's Arcade is the largest open-air market in Castries, Saint Lucia. It is located in the middle of the capital and has over 300 regular vendors and a hundred or more local sellers on market days.
Marie Grace Augustin, OBE, commonly known as Grace Augustin, was a Saint Lucian businesswoman and politician. After attaining a nursing and midwifery degree, she studied law, but was refused permission to take a bar examination based on her gender. Instead, Augustin became the first woman in Saint Lucia to manage a large estate, becoming a planter. She was the first woman to be nominated as a parliamentarian in St. Lucia and become the first female member of the legislature.
Harold Simmons was a Saint Lucian folklorist, artist, historian, and social worker. He is often referred to as "the father of modern arts and culture in Saint Lucia."
Coordinates: 14°0′31″N60°59′26″W / 14.00861°N 60.99056°W
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