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Customer Reviews (5)

A true Caribbean Genius
...i firmly believe he has reperesented the caribbean in a way no- one has ever done before. Derek Walcott's diction and his superb metaphors are yet to be seen in any other caribbean poet. Yet, like the jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley, Walcott has used his art in such a way that the whole world can identify with his work. His development of major themes such as alienation and cultural identity, Caribbean history , society and development and the pOst colonial era truly represents the region in a realistic way. His poems are truly inspirational and representative of the Caribbean.Walcott's poems are a reseviour for any historian who wishes to know about the history of the Caribbean. One shoud note that Walcott has not only used the english language in his poems but he has created the rhyme and rhythm in such a way to achieve a Caribbean creole(See "Parades Parades"), thus firmly establishing his identity as a caribbean poet and writer.IN CONCLUSION, Walcott is a true genius and we in the caribbean are proud of him.

He didn't win a Nobel Prize for nothing
This cool dude uses language in a way no one else does. He redefines syntax, conventions, the way words are placed together, and forms a new interpretation of phrase-synthesis I can't even begin to describe.Actually, I will. There's lots of surrealism here, but not just for its ownsake. There's deep philosophy here too. The sombering tones give theincredulous imagery and abstractionistic logic (this guy's a hard read, asit says in the preface) and language that makes him something like a SylviaPlath in tuxedo, but with a much wider-spanning genius that gives hispoetry a greater variety of elements and vocabulary, and with better breaksand sense of poetic rhythm.

Walcott's Incomparable Command of the English Language
One cannot recommend this book too highly.It is a certain classic for scores of generations to come.Derek Walcott IS the Carribean.His poems enrich the reader's sense of the Carribean without everover-sentimentalizing.Walcott's keen observations heighten the familiar,while at times domesticating the exotic.His poem "The Spoiler'sReturn" is equally humorous and disturbing, as it adresses the socialproblems of the Carribean, and is best appreciated when read with aCarribean accent.His lines ebb and flow like a tide, but always draw youin and never disappoint.Must read poems of his: "Codicil","The Spoiler's Return", "LI" (from the Midsummercollection), "The Schooner Flight", "The FortunateTraveller".If you buy one collection of English poetry publishedafter WWII, this should be the book you purchase.No one alive can makethe English language work as powerfully and brilliantly for him/her asDerek Walcott can.

Walcott is the best living poet in English
It would be no exaggeration to say that Walcott is the greatest living poet writing in English, on account of the richness and originality of his language, the accuracy of his natural and social observations, and the diversity and ambition of his subject matter.Walcott works with traditional meter in rhyme in both a strict sense and a looser and more ground-breaking sense, and he also has a formidable command of free verse techniques.

A work of genius that brings you in touch with a man's heart
Derek Walcott's "Collected Poems 1948-1984", is a work of literary genius.It is a classic that echoes the works of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, and other great poets of the past.Walcott not only echoes their styles, he has embraced them and made them his own; adding his own strong island flavour.So what you get is a very refreshing read full of images and sounds that bombard the senses; carrying you away to another world.This book is a road into thepoet's heart which echoes the loves, passions and sorrows of all humanity ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

GREAT!
I love Derek Walcott, and this is the best collection of his poetry I've ever seen. Amazing editing. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Creating an epic poem based on Homer and Odysseus seems a risky proposition for a modern poet, but Derek Walcott accomplishes the feat with stunning results in Omeros. The title, which is Homer's name in Greek, nods to the wandering and exile of the great poet himself, who learned and suffered while traveling. From there, Walcott takes off to "see the cities of many men and to know their minds." After an exhilarating exploration of tremendous proportions, we learn of the past and the present and ride along the rhythm of the words of Walcott in this amazing text.Book Description

Customer Reviews (15)

Epic
Exploring the relationships between natives, tourists, and nature, Walcott moves beyond just our relationships with one another to create this modern epic. Evocative of the Iliad with its battles between Hector and Achille over the yellow-dressed Helen, Omeros moves beyond just the interactions of the natives to greater themes.

There are many exciting parts to the poem: the beauty of the language, the themes, that it was only on the second time reading Omeros that I realized it rhymed, such is the seeming effortlessness with which Walcott writes. It is a modern epic for the way it is able to really explore human relationships with one another, with the trees, with people invading our indigenous societies.

Walcott manages to focus on a few people in spite of the seemingly huge scope of Omeros, and this makes the book much more deeply enjoyable. I recommend it heartily.

Walcott's Omeros
Omeros! A treat for the lover of language.Much has been and will bewritten ofthis literary challenge : plot, characters, and segueing epic; but little will ever do justice to the heart of the matter,- ( which demands thisconscious encomium.)

What for Habermas is the ideal of communicative actionis celebratedin Walcott as the action of poetic communication. Walcott paints.

On every page, heoffers the reader a life time of disciplined observation - the fruit of whichhe dispenses with prodigal largesse.

This humble,almost unconsciousmaster of metaphor is able to enterunerringly intothe consciousness of things and to emerge from that dive with pearls,whose inner flower-flames he unfurls or explodesin liquid light for the benefit of all.

One wishes that Omeros hadremained faithful to its native soil - the simple wisdom of Aristotelianunity. The manifold may well betoo vast and seems to dilute the poetic distillation. (Though the genre itself andWalcott's coupledethnicityexculpate,one still wishes ...etc.)

The work is all done in and as an act of love; still, a brochetting irk pensiles in the mind :
How can a love so in love with its art and the art of its art be anything but artful.

Anticipating the critics who- like he says elsewhere- would spaniel after him like an old stag tohang their theseson the exclamationsof his antlers, Walcott may well have an answer to this and other squibs. Hisarrowing sea-swift Omeros veers andscales with extra territorial sui generis facticity.

The rich pyrotechnics of his fractaling passion,is,like a flung star,a challenge to young energetic poets like Colin Carberry of Ireland , Kendel Hippolyte andMc.DonaldDixon from the Islands.

Omeros should hold a prominent place on everybookshelf.

Postcolonial Homer
Walcott confidently feels his way into epic form, borrowing the blind eyes of Homer and tropes from Homer's tales.Jam-packed with craft, OMEROS' Dantesque tercets make hairpin turns on the pinpoints of vowels and consonants.Walcott is nothing if not evocative, calling forth the spirits of breadfruit, waves, Plains Indians, sunken treasure, sea creatures and all his other muses with a music that is beyond sounds.

For all the great poetry, what fans of the modern epic will miss in OMEROS is a narrative through-line.Structurally, it is more like William Carlos Williams' PATERSON or especially Hart Crane's THE BRIDGE, than like THE ILLIAD or THE ODYSSEY.The stories in the poem are given secondary importance to the ideas.While I will not disagree with other reviewers' characterizations of the characters as 'well-developed,' I will say that Walcott gives his characters very little to do.The greatest journey is the one taken by the un-named narrator (who seems to be prowling the University Poet circuit from the Carribean to the U.S. to England).Those who want a story with their modern epic are directed to THE CHANGING LIGHT AT SANDOVER by James Merrill.

What Walcott offers in place of narrative is recollections, meditations and essays on a post-colonial world.Certain human motifs are bound to repeat, he says, and demonstrates with the story of fishermen Hector and Achille fighting for the island girl in the yellow dress, Helen.To me, Omeros is really a collection of poems in a similar form spiralling around similar themes, taking up each others' melodies in different keys.Like any symphony, it sometimes gets lost.But its individual passages are, more often than not, magnificent -- and beautiful to hear.

The worst poem it has ever been my fire's misfortune to burn
Why is it not possible to bestow 0 stars upon an item? I cannot express deeply enough how horrible this 320-some-odd-page poem is. It is the longest complaint I have ever had to trudge through. That is all it is. One long list of complaints. All the narrator does throughout the piece is whine about the same things. A repetative compliation of meaningless and monotonous rants about where he belongs in life, and what makes them so tedious is the fact that you can never relate to the man, so there is no way to feel remorse. I will admit that there are some eloquent descriptions and very mild humour, but it is not enough to save this tragically wordy, muddled, vague, boring, unoriginal, god-please-take-me-now tribute to an overrated classics writer. Save yourself the long nights and headaches....Stay far, far away!

what you read is true
My review title shouldn't be construed as me claiming any knowledge re: Caribbean culture/history, or indeed -any- of the experiences of the disenfranchised peoples this book touches on. All I can say is that the glowing reviews here on Amazon are accurate. Walcott's poetry is supple almost beyond belief: so facile and brilliant that it would stand between the reader and the subject if Walcott himself didn't admit that, yes, he can be awfully facile and brilliant with the English language! The writer walks a dozen dangerous lines - among them, the could-be-precious placing of himself in his own poem - and walks away triumphant from every single challenge.

If you are looking for a linear "story" in the tradition of Homer but transplanted to a Caribbean locale, this isn't it. If however you are looking for great poetry and the understanding of others (and yourself) that great poetry can bring, then it is right here. OMEROS is eminently worth your time. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A flock of commas
In the "Prodigal", the noble poet luareate, Walcott proves again
he is a man of humble proportion with grand perspective. This landscape of memory lives in poignant hues. His flock of commas soar across stanzas of history. In the color nuiance, he bares his painted soul, so we may grow. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Nice play
I had to read it a few times to understand what was really going on. Because it is written in a Creole dialect it was some what hard to understand, but if you re-read where you are confused you can easily figure it out. It's a very nice story about a poor, old, sad black man, and his yearning for home.

Genius!
Walcott is a genius. These early works are among the first indications that he was to be a the literary master.

Very interesting
I did this book for my literature class and I thought it was vey interesting. It reminded me somewhat of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man". This book is vey interesting and is written by a man who is basically a minority where he is from due to his religion and up bringing. The book's main character is Makak who is ashamed of his identity as a black man and idealizes the moon because it is white. Eventually he learns to accept himself as he is. ... Read more

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Amazon.com
Derek Walcott's identity as a poet is evident even in his literary criticism. Who else would produce a sentence such as "Let the shaggy, long horde of spiky letters and the dark rumbling of hexametrical phalanxes rise over the outback towards the capital of the English language" to describe the work of a fellow poet--in this case, Australian Les Murray? Indeed, each of the essays in What the Twilight Says is at least as rich in language as it is in ideas; so much so, in fact, that at times the view is obscured by the verbiage. Nevertheless, beneath the loco rococo turns of phrase Walcott has some serious points to make. In his discussion of V.S. Naipaul, for example, he offers some telling insights into the effects of colonialism on his subject's psyche: "What is the cost to his Indianness of loving England?" Walcott asks; "To whom does he owe any fealty? Ancestors? The surroundings that history placed them in, the cane fields of Trinidad, were contemptible, as they themselves would have to be, having lost both shame and pride. Therefore, the only dignity is to be neither master nor servant, to choose a nobler servitude: writing. The punishment for the choice is the astonishment of gratitude; to be grateful to the vegetation of an English shire. Not to India or the West Indies, but to the sweet itch of an old wound." Walcott praises Naipaul's genius while calling him on his racism, selfishness, and disdain for his roots--in effect loving the sinner while hating the sin. His essay on Joseph Brodsky is an intelligent meditation on the art of translation while "The Muse of History" looks at the influence of history in New World literature. From a discussion of the poetry of Ted Hughes to an open love letter to Martiniquan writer Patrick Chamoiseau, Derek Walcott provides plenty of provocative food for thought wrapped in poetical prose. --Alix WilberBook Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Help from Hamner
Although Derek Walcott's Caribbean meditation on Homer's Odyssey stands byitself as an eloquent and thrilling work of epic poetry, to read it withouta helping hand--or book--is to miss many of its riches. In accessiblelanguage (no unintelligible academic posturing here), Hamner reveals theallusions and untangles the threads: Homer, history of St. Lucia, Walcott'sautobiographical allusions, etc. It can be used while one is reading thepoem, or skimmed afterward. (It took me a day.) Either way, it's excellentand readable support. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Poet Derek Walcott loves grand themes. In his award-winning epic poem, Omeros, he revisted Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey, relocating them to the Caribbean and peopling them with the poor fishermen and colonials of his homeland. In The Bounty, Walcott takes the 1787 arrival of that ill-fated British ship on Caribbean shores as the starting point for an elegiac meditation on life, art, and identity. In the collection's first poem, "The Bounty," Walcott remembers his mother who "lies/near the white beach stones"; the bounty he finds in his homeland, St. Lucia, is more than just the breadfruit brought to the Islands by the H.M.S. Bounty two centuries ago; it is the "thorns of the bougainvillea," and the industry of ants.

The Bounty is both an elegy for the poet's mother and for himself--for the land he left behind and the identity he shed as a result. In these poems, St. Lucia becomes all the more precious because Walcott can't go home again. Rich in imagery, these poems evoke the essence of the islands with each line.Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

A book of elegies, full of death, sadness and simple faith.
Walcott's photograph on the back of the 1st edition sums up the feeling ofBounty- Sorrow, the grief of the death of friends and loved ones, faith inGod seen "as through a glass darkly", the exhaustion of asensitive man aware of his own mortality. Yet, through it all is the greatsense of gratitude for the folk culture of the country that has nurturedhim. And if he will not make great declarations of religious faith, he isthankful for the sun on the leaves, the ocean outside his door, the songsof Sessenne the folk singer of St. Lucia. Like Crusoe and Odysseus, thisfortunate traveller has returned to his bench on the edge of the sea underthe breadfruit leaves, "where stars and fireflies breed." Thispoet is past posturing. "The only art left is the preparation ofgrace", and even now, ever the bright eyed poet (behind the tears ofthe aging sage), he is "going down to the shallow edge to beginagain." Walcott's only vocation has been poetry, his universe that ofletters. In this he has never lost his faith.

EACH WORD IS LIKEA VIEW OF CARRIBEAN HEART
READING THIS IS LIKE PAINTING A PORTRAIT .IT GLIMMER LIKE THE JEWEL OF THE CARRIBEANBLUE TONE IS A DEEP PATHOSOF PERSONAL EMOTIONTHAT COME ONLY COME FROM THE PEN OF ONE WHO LOVES HIS HOMELAMD AND WRITE ABOUT IT

Striking imagery
Walcott's poetry sweeps you along on a series of vivid and memorable images that leave you breathless. ... Read more

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Book Description
This is the first literary biography of Nobel Prize-winning poet and dramatist Derek Walcott. It traces the creative contradictions in his life from colonial St Lucia, where he was part of a tiny English-speaking Protestant mulatto elite in an overwhelmingly French-creole Roman Catholic black society, to 1999 when, a star of international literature and a symbol of cultural decolonization, he wanted to be Poet Laureate of England. The author has had access to letters, diaries, uncollected and unpublished writings, and conducted numerous interviews in the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Walcott is seen as someone driven by the need to justify his life and fulfil his talents before an unknowable God, but who, in mastering the ways of the world often regards himself as an example of fallen humanity. Besides offering an approach to Walcott as a poet, dramatist, theatre director, arts critic, and teacher, the book shows how his desire to be a painter influenced his vision and the way he works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

From the provinces to Stockholm-a professional career
In this exhaustive and thorough 714page biography, Bruce King sets out the development of Derek Walcott as a poet and dramatist whose ambition and talent led him from the colonial backwaters of the Caribbean of the forties to the Nobel stage in Stockholm in 1992. The reader will not find a gossipy, tell-all chronicle.King follows Walcott from his earliest years as a child prodigy in Saint Lucia through university in Jamaica,life in Trinidad where he formed his Trinidad Theatre Workshop and on to his jet setting years as an international writer whose personal friends were Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Les Murray, Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell, Paul Simon et al.Through his close detailing of Walcott's relative poverty, his incessant travelling to read his work, his disappointments, his successes,his sheer prolific output of writing and art, King fulfills his goal to demonstrate the effects on a major literary talent of cultural decolonialisation, the recognition of national literatures, the place of the U.S.in encouraging artists like Walcott.Walcott's is a very modern life,an example of the changing face of the once imperial-international literary and artistic scene.Walcott's work, as seen in his most recentTieopolo's Hound (an integration of poetry and art), continues to defy literature boundaries.King's biography will further understanding of the writer, his work, the culture from which he comes, and the larger movements in 20th century arts and letters.A must for general libraries, literary collections, and for readers and students of modern literature. A recommended companion volume is also King's earlier "Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama"(Oxford,1995).

From the provinces to Stockholm-a professional career
In this exhaustive and thorough 714page biography, Bruce King sets out the development of Derek Walcott as a poet and dramatist whose ambition and talent led him from the colonial backwaters of the Caribbean of the forties to the Nobel stage in Stockholm in 1992. The reader will not find a gossipy, tell-all chronicle.King follows Walcott from his earliest years as a child prodigy in Saint Lucia through university in Jamaica,life in Trinidad where he formed his Trinidad Theatre Workshop and on to his jet setting years as an international writer whose personal friends were Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Les Murray, Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell, Paul Simon et al.Through his close detailing of Walcott's relative poverty, his incessant travelling to read his work, his disappointments, his successes,his sheer prolific output of writing and art, King fulfills his goal to demonstrate the effects on a major literary talent of cultural decolonialisation, the recognition of national literatures, the place of the U.S.in encouraging artists like Walcott.Walcott's is a very modern life,an example of the changing face of the once imperial-international literary and artistic scene.Walcott's work, as seen in his most recentTieopolo's Hound (an integration of poetry and art), continues to defy literature boundaries.King's biography will further understanding of the writer, his work, the culture from which he comes, and the larger movements in 20th century arts and letters.A must for general libraries, literary collections, and for readers and students of modern literature. A recommended companion volume is also King's earlier "Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama"(Oxford,1995). ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Scintillating and rapturous
I gave this volume to a friend who had no experience of reading poetry (since school, that is), and had asked me what sort of poems he could start with.I pointed out a couple of poems that I thought were highlights, and wished him good luck.When I met up with him a week later, he burst into excited praise for the book.He'd started on the poems I had suggested, and rapidly proceeded to read the whole collection, several times over.
I quite agree with his response - in my early 20s this was one of the books that got me excited in contemporary poets and poetry.While Walcott is not foremost an experimentalist - and he might at odd moments almost be thought a sentimentalist - his sheer joy of craft and wordsmithing is a beautiful, beautiful thing to behold.This book is one of those things that can remind you why life is worth living.It's that good. ... Read more

Book Description
When Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize, he was cited for "a poeticoeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcomeof a multicultural commitment." The lively interviews in this collectionreveal Walcott's generous and brilliant intelligence as well as his strong,forthright opinions. He discusses the craft of poetry, the status ofcontemporary poetry and drama, his founding of the Trinidad TheatreWorkshop, and his views on a number of influential writers, includingEliot, Auden, Brodsky, Heaney, and Naipaul.

Boldly speaking his mind, Walcott takes many controversial positions on awide range of subjects, such as Caribbean and U.S. politics, literaryinstruction in American universities, the proper role of sound in modernpoetry, and the "ego" apparent in contemporary American poetry, andproblems of race. Whatever the subject, Walcott responds fully andcandidly. ... Read more

Book Description
Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is one of the Caribbean's most famous writers. His unique voice in poetry, drama and criticism is shaped by his position at the crossroads between Caribbean, British and American culture and by his interest in hybrid identities and diaspora. Edward Baugh's Derek Walcott analyses and evaluates Walcott's entire career over the last fifty years. Baugh guides the reader through the continuities and differences of theme and style in Walcott's poems and plays. Walcott is an avowedly Caribbean writer, acutely conscious of his culture and colonial heritage, but he has also made a lasting contribution to the way we read and value the western literary tradition. This comprehensive survey considers each of Walcott's published books, offering the most up-to-date guide available for students, scholars and readers of Walcott. Students of Caribbean and postcolonial studies will find this a perfect introduction to this important writer. ... Read more

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Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Epics for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: plot summary; character analysis; authorship commentary; an overview of the epic's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Epics for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Epics for Students."Download Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Epics for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: plot summary; character analysis; authorship commentary; an overview of the epic's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Epics for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: The Gale Group--and "Epics for Students." ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Written at Derek Walcott's suggestion, and based on interviews with the playwright and actors, this is the first detailed study of a post-colonial theatre company and the problems of creating `serious' theatre in the former colonies. The book shows how Walcott strove to create a world class theatre ensemble in the West Indies - a Trinidadian Brecht Berliner ensemble - and traces his life and career in West Indian theatre, and the history of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop.Beginning with an actors' studio and the vision of a West Indian theatre company of international standards with its own style of acting, Derek Walcott developed the most important theatre company in the West Indies. This was the company which first performed his Dream on Monkey Mountain, the musical version of Ti-Jean and his Brothers, The Joker of Seville, and O Babylon! A major contribution to West Indian history and theatre, Bruce King's study reveals the heroic will of Derek Walcott and his actors, and their determination to prove that West Indian drama was a force with which to be reckoned. ... Read more

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James Clifford tells us that modernism has become a "traveling culture" because it reflects the "discrepant cosmopolitanism" of the twentieth century -- that is, a world in which people are paradoxically migratory yet rooted, international yet local. Perhaps modernism has traveled so well because it has been transformed by its journey; this is the suggestion Charles Pollard makes in New World Modernisms, a fascinating first step in mapping the migration of modernism.

Pollard looks to recent Caribbean poetry as a means of reassessing modernism's cosmopolitanism; in particular, his book redefines the cosmopolitan influence of T. S. Eliot's modernism by examining how his ideas have been transformed by the two leading Anglophone Caribbean poets, Derek Walcott and Kamau Brathwaite. Pollard concentrates on three of Eliot's modernist principles: tradition, poetry's relation to speech, and poetry's social function. He then traces Walcott and Brathwaite's transformations of these ideas in their use of diverse cultural fragments to construct alternative Caribbean traditions, in their revitalization of poetic language with the rhythms and diction of Caribbean speech, and in their rearticulation of the poet's public role in a Caribbean context.

By examining these formative postcolonial expressions of modernism, Pollard challenges the prevailing critical approach that sets postcolonialism in opposition to modernism, an approach that assumes that a modernist aesthetic necessarily advances a colonial ideology.

New World Modernisms reinvigorates Eliot scholarship by tracing his international influence while providing the most comprehensive evaluation to date of the complementary contributions of Walcott and Brathwaite to the development of a New World modernist aesthetic. ... Read more