The Poetry of Derek Walcott 19482013

A collection spanning the whole of Derek Walcotts celebrated, inimitable, essential careerHe gives us more than himself or a world; he gives us a sense of infinity embodied in the language. Alongside Joseph Brodskys words of praise one might mention the more concrete honors that the renowned poet Derek Walcott has received: a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship; the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry; the Nobel Prize in Literature.The Poetry of Derek Walcott 19482013 draws from every stage of the poets storied career. Here are examples of his very earliest work, like In My Eighteenth Year, published when the poet himself was still a teenager; his first widely celebrated verse, like A Far Cry from Africa, which speaks of violence, of loyalties divided in ones very blood; his mature work, like The Schooner Flight from The StarApple Kingdom; and his late masterpieces, like the tender Sixty Years After, from the 2010 collection White Egrets.Across sixtyfive years, Walcott grapples with the themes that have defined his work as they have defined his life: the unsolvable riddle of identity; the painful legacy of colonialism on his native Caribbean island of St. Lucia; the mysteries of faith and love and the natural world; the Western canon, celebrated and problematic; the trauma of growing old, of losing friends, family, ones own memory. This collection, selected by Walcotts friend the English poet Glyn Maxwell, will prove as enduring as the questions, the passions, that have driven Walcott to write for more than half a century.