What do you think?
Rate this book
White Egrets: Poems
A DAZZLING NEW COLLECTION FROM ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POETS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
In White Egrets, Derek Walcott treats the characteristic subjects of his career—the Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy, his love of the Western literary tradition, the wisdom that comes through the passing of time, the always strange joys of new love, and the sometimes terrifying beauty of the natural world—with an intensity and drive that recall his greatest work. Through the mesmerizing repetition of theme and imagery, Walcott creates an almost surflike cadence, broadening the possibilities of rhyme and meter, poetic form and language.
White Egrets is a moving new collection from one of the most important poets of the twentieth century—a celebration of the life and language of the West Indies. It is also a triumphant paean to beauty, love, art, and—perhaps most surprisingly—getting older.
In White Egrets, Derek Walcott treats the characteristic subjects of his career—the Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy, his love of the Western literary tradition, the wisdom that comes through the passing of time, the always strange joys of new love, and the sometimes terrifying beauty of the natural world—with an intensity and drive that recall his greatest work. Through the mesmerizing repetition of theme and imagery, Walcott creates an almost surflike cadence, broadening the possibilities of rhyme and meter, poetic form and language.
White Egrets is a moving new collection from one of the most important poets of the twentieth century—a celebration of the life and language of the West Indies. It is also a triumphant paean to beauty, love, art, and—perhaps most surprisingly—getting older.
94 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 16, 2010
34 people are currently reading
1135 people want to read
About the author
Derek Walcott
180 books499 followersDerek Walcott was a Caribbean poet, playwright, writer and visual artist. Born in Castries, St. Lucia, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 "for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment."
His work, which developed independently of the schools of magic realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. He was best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond to the American West and London.
Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remained active with its Board of Directors until his death. He also founded Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981. In 2004, Walcott was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, and had retired from teaching poetry and drama in the Creative Writing Department at Boston University by 2007. He continued to give readings and lectures throughout the world after retiring. He divided his time between his home in the Caribbean and New York City.
His work, which developed independently of the schools of magic realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of myth and its relationship to culture. He was best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond to the American West and London.
Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remained active with its Board of Directors until his death. He also founded Boston Playwrights' Theatre at Boston University in 1981. In 2004, Walcott was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, and had retired from teaching poetry and drama in the Creative Writing Department at Boston University by 2007. He continued to give readings and lectures throughout the world after retiring. He divided his time between his home in the Caribbean and New York City.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
May 3, 2019
”L’ideale perpetuo è lo stupore”
Se un capolavoro, come dice Walcott, è “Un' opera che ha la capacità di muoverti e commuoverti in maniera considerevole”, allora questa raccolta di poesie senza dubbio lo è.
Le egrette bianche sono i grandi aironi tropicali: “angeli inattesi”, “rimpianti sbiaditi dei ricordi di un uomo anziano”, così li definisce il poeta, e l’assonanza risulta più evidente in Inglese: “White egrets”: egrets (egrette) – regrets (rimpianti).
Sii felice ora a Cap, per le gioie più semplici –
per una fila di egrette che suggeriscono l’ultima parola
per le recitazioni del mare che mi rientrano in testa
con domande che loro stesse cancellano, obliterando quella voce
demoniaca che ultimamente mi ha posseduto; inascoltata,
sussurra come fa il diavolo all’orecchio di un pazzo
che alle sue mani insanguinate farfuglia “ero posseduto”,
come il mulinare del mare in una conchiglia, simile allo scroscio
di applausi che precede l’attore elevando a un picco
d’orrore paralizzante il dubbio crescente
che il suo apice sia passato. Se è vero
che il mio dono si è inaridito, che ne è rimasto ben poco,
se quel tizio ha ragione allora non rimane altro da fare
che lasciare una poesia come una donna perché la ami
e non vuoi vederla ferita, men che meno da te;
quindi incamminati verso il ciglio della scogliera e innalzati,
sopra la gelosia, la stizza, la perfidia, con la grazia
di una fregata sopra il Barrel of Beef, la sua roccia;
sii grato di aver scritto bene in questo posto,
fa’ che le poesie strappate si involino da te come uno stormo
di bianche egrette in un lungo ultimo sospiro di liberazione.
Ma non ci sono solo i rimpianti, c’è l’amore per le donne, ci sono gli amici, i luoghi che hanno segnato la sua esistenza, il mare… c’è l’omaggio appassionato alla sua isola, Santa Lucia (“Questo piccolo posto non produce altro che bellezza”).
Che il mio nemico trovi sollievo in queste onde
perché sono belle persino per la sua malvagità,
che la pioviggine sia una benedizione per il suo cuore
come lo è per il mio; qui si dice che quando il sole splende
tra i fili della pioggia finissima il diavolo sta
picchiando sua moglie. Non è il mio cuore che rimette
al mio nemico le sue oscene brame materiali,
ma il lampo di una foglia, il dardo di una colomba screziata,
le cotte processionali delle onde che entrano in una grotta
come penitenti sotto una cupola diretti ai pizzi dell’altare;
una bellezza simile non condanna né salva
come i dogmi della Chiesa del mio nemico, le basiliche
di cherubini ruzzolanti e santi in agonia e tumulti
di nubi purpuree; nonostante le mie ragioni
condividerò la bellezza del mondo con i miei nemici
anche se la loro cupidigia distrugge l’innocenza
della mia isola adamitica. Il mio nemico è un serpente
proprio come in un affresco, e lui con tutte le
sue scaglie e il veleno e la sua testa luccicante
fa parte della bellezza dell’isola; non serve che si penta.
A 85 anni è inevitabile, Walcott si inoltra in una meditazione (non un bilancio) sul tramonto della vita, una meditazione a tratti dolorosa, addolorata, ma mai triste.
“L'ideale perpetuo è lo stupore”. Dice Walcott: “E’ una cosa in cui credo profondamente. La vita è piena di mistero ed è da vivere con incanto, apprezzando sempre quello che ci sorprende”.
Struggente.
Se un capolavoro, come dice Walcott, è “Un' opera che ha la capacità di muoverti e commuoverti in maniera considerevole”, allora questa raccolta di poesie senza dubbio lo è.
Le egrette bianche sono i grandi aironi tropicali: “angeli inattesi”, “rimpianti sbiaditi dei ricordi di un uomo anziano”, così li definisce il poeta, e l’assonanza risulta più evidente in Inglese: “White egrets”: egrets (egrette) – regrets (rimpianti).
Sii felice ora a Cap, per le gioie più semplici –
per una fila di egrette che suggeriscono l’ultima parola
per le recitazioni del mare che mi rientrano in testa
con domande che loro stesse cancellano, obliterando quella voce
demoniaca che ultimamente mi ha posseduto; inascoltata,
sussurra come fa il diavolo all’orecchio di un pazzo
che alle sue mani insanguinate farfuglia “ero posseduto”,
come il mulinare del mare in una conchiglia, simile allo scroscio
di applausi che precede l’attore elevando a un picco
d’orrore paralizzante il dubbio crescente
che il suo apice sia passato. Se è vero
che il mio dono si è inaridito, che ne è rimasto ben poco,
se quel tizio ha ragione allora non rimane altro da fare
che lasciare una poesia come una donna perché la ami
e non vuoi vederla ferita, men che meno da te;
quindi incamminati verso il ciglio della scogliera e innalzati,
sopra la gelosia, la stizza, la perfidia, con la grazia
di una fregata sopra il Barrel of Beef, la sua roccia;
sii grato di aver scritto bene in questo posto,
fa’ che le poesie strappate si involino da te come uno stormo
di bianche egrette in un lungo ultimo sospiro di liberazione.
Ma non ci sono solo i rimpianti, c’è l’amore per le donne, ci sono gli amici, i luoghi che hanno segnato la sua esistenza, il mare… c’è l’omaggio appassionato alla sua isola, Santa Lucia (“Questo piccolo posto non produce altro che bellezza”).
Che il mio nemico trovi sollievo in queste onde
perché sono belle persino per la sua malvagità,
che la pioviggine sia una benedizione per il suo cuore
come lo è per il mio; qui si dice che quando il sole splende
tra i fili della pioggia finissima il diavolo sta
picchiando sua moglie. Non è il mio cuore che rimette
al mio nemico le sue oscene brame materiali,
ma il lampo di una foglia, il dardo di una colomba screziata,
le cotte processionali delle onde che entrano in una grotta
come penitenti sotto una cupola diretti ai pizzi dell’altare;
una bellezza simile non condanna né salva
come i dogmi della Chiesa del mio nemico, le basiliche
di cherubini ruzzolanti e santi in agonia e tumulti
di nubi purpuree; nonostante le mie ragioni
condividerò la bellezza del mondo con i miei nemici
anche se la loro cupidigia distrugge l’innocenza
della mia isola adamitica. Il mio nemico è un serpente
proprio come in un affresco, e lui con tutte le
sue scaglie e il veleno e la sua testa luccicante
fa parte della bellezza dell’isola; non serve che si penta.
A 85 anni è inevitabile, Walcott si inoltra in una meditazione (non un bilancio) sul tramonto della vita, una meditazione a tratti dolorosa, addolorata, ma mai triste.
“L'ideale perpetuo è lo stupore”. Dice Walcott: “E’ una cosa in cui credo profondamente. La vita è piena di mistero ed è da vivere con incanto, apprezzando sempre quello che ci sorprende”.
Struggente.
September 26, 2017
considerate che egrets fa rima con regrets (rimpianti) non con desires (desideri). quando l'ombra di Walcott è entrata in quella "verde boscaglia di oblio", come dice nella splendida poesia che da' il titolo al libro, mi domando chissà con cosa avrà fatto i conti.
...into that peace beyond desires and beyond regrets.
...into that peace beyond desires and beyond regrets.
Read
June 21, 2015In poetry, the word-image "egret(s)" always makes me think of regret.
Terminal number eleven was occupied by an older man with receding hair, reading comix distributed by King Features online while blaring crotch rock from his headphones.
The terminals were soon all taken and the poems not yet cracked.
A thumb keeps time atop the mouse. Discrete cliques of mice, the gentle tapping of keys on a board.
Bored.
The scroll yields no sum as of yet. I, abdominal, sit and desist.
but numbers keep their forms / and faces we still cherish of the ones / we love, lost, hallowed and reduced / to the echo of the numbers we skim quickly / from a new pain to which we will grow used, / like pebbles to the hoarse, numbering seaTerminal number twelve had no chair.
Terminal number eleven was occupied by an older man with receding hair, reading comix distributed by King Features online while blaring crotch rock from his headphones.
The terminals were soon all taken and the poems not yet cracked.
A thumb keeps time atop the mouse. Discrete cliques of mice, the gentle tapping of keys on a board.
Bored.
The scroll yields no sum as of yet. I, abdominal, sit and desist.
January 3, 2016
The trees
Brought down
To make
This book
Must be
Very Lucky.
Brought down
To make
This book
Must be
Very Lucky.
Read
February 29, 2012This is the writing of someone who has been doing backflips with English for so long, he's barely aware how impressive it is. It's seasoned, and also spectacular.
That said, I think I might look for other works of his that I could enjoy more. Here he's a little bit whiney (I can only endure so much mourning over a lost muse) and the topics are too urbane to be relatable (I get it--you've traveled the world, especially the romantic old cities of Europe, and you like a good wine). All the same, I'm glad to have discovered him.
That said, I think I might look for other works of his that I could enjoy more. Here he's a little bit whiney (I can only endure so much mourning over a lost muse) and the topics are too urbane to be relatable (I get it--you've traveled the world, especially the romantic old cities of Europe, and you like a good wine). All the same, I'm glad to have discovered him.
Read
January 22, 2023I knew this got the tse prize back in 2010 but all the same I wandered in sceptical. nonetheless!! a super impressive late-stage collection we take back through the oeuvre & it's rare something is so powerful at this point. swansong.
the man can write a long line mwah
the man can write a long line mwah
June 27, 2010
My first Walcott. If he's writing at this level at age 80, I need to read more of him. Beautiful. *Update. I checked this one out at the library, and thought so highly of it, that I purchased it. When I'm an old man, I'd like to read these poems, or have someone read them to me, while looking at the sea.
October 15, 2024
Though these poems shows some signs of Walcott's earlier skill as a poet, this collection lacks energy, drive and originality. The disjointed ramblings of a randy old man.
May 26, 2013
Derek Walcott, a Caribbean poet, writes well about the sea, sun, wind, and long lines where the sky seems rubbled by clouds. But in White Egrets, though the poems carry some of those same Caribbean genes, he's writing about the Mediterranean world. So here's an Italian group, a "Spanish Series," a "Sicilian Suite." Walcott can write it as well as anybody, these poems of a sun made more brilliant by sharing the sky with clouds and a sea made more blue by sails. In poems that are formally married to the European tradition, he allows the lyrical language of his own background to burnish them so that they express a world without boundaries. His poems are filled with the sun and wind he describes letting that tradition absorb his vision. Here are poems explaining how the wind makes music in shore grass. Here are poems that tell what happens when the tops of waves are frayed and fall back into themselves. Walcott writes the Mediterranean landscape and seascape by showing us that world of sun and wind and sky and sea beating at the horizons where they meet. The egrets of his imagination are poems stroking the same wind and reflecting the same sun in order to express a world we can embrace as known.
February 9, 2014
These poems are clearly the product of his later years (this book first came out in 2010) - the themes of aging and dying are pronounced throughout. I would love to now read some of his earlier work for comparison. I love the way Walcott uses color and images from nature in his poetry, especially the egrets that appear in many of these poems. I will just quote the closing sentences from the second verse of the poem "In the Village" about Greenwich Village in New York City:
" ... It is the hell
of ordinary, unrequited love. Watch those egrets
trudging the lawn in a dishevelled troop, white banners
trailing forlornly; they are the bleached regrets
of an old man's memoirs, printed stanzas
showing their hinged wings like wide open secrets."
" ... It is the hell
of ordinary, unrequited love. Watch those egrets
trudging the lawn in a dishevelled troop, white banners
trailing forlornly; they are the bleached regrets
of an old man's memoirs, printed stanzas
showing their hinged wings like wide open secrets."
June 4, 2019
“Se è vero
che il mio dono si è inaridito, che ne è rimasto ben poco,
se quel tizio ha ragione allora non mi rimane altro da fare
che lasciare la poesia come una donna perché la ami
e non vuoi vederla ferita, men che meno da te;
quindi incamminati verso il ciglio della scogliera e innalzati,
sopra la gelosia, la stizza, la perfidia, con la grazia
di una fregata sopra il Barrel of Beef, la sua roccia;
sii grato di aver scritto bene in questo posto,
fa’ che le poesie strappate si involino da te come uno stormo
di bianche egrette in un lungo ultimo sospiro di liberazione.”
Iosif Brodskij ha paragonato la poesia di Walcott alle onde di marea, a frangenti che montano, si ritirano e tornano a lambire la costa, mentre la magnificenza del suo linguaggio e la profusione di immagini evocano la lussureggiante natura delle Indie Occidentali. Io sarò più breve: ho trovato un nuovo amore.
che il mio dono si è inaridito, che ne è rimasto ben poco,
se quel tizio ha ragione allora non mi rimane altro da fare
che lasciare la poesia come una donna perché la ami
e non vuoi vederla ferita, men che meno da te;
quindi incamminati verso il ciglio della scogliera e innalzati,
sopra la gelosia, la stizza, la perfidia, con la grazia
di una fregata sopra il Barrel of Beef, la sua roccia;
sii grato di aver scritto bene in questo posto,
fa’ che le poesie strappate si involino da te come uno stormo
di bianche egrette in un lungo ultimo sospiro di liberazione.”
Iosif Brodskij ha paragonato la poesia di Walcott alle onde di marea, a frangenti che montano, si ritirano e tornano a lambire la costa, mentre la magnificenza del suo linguaggio e la profusione di immagini evocano la lussureggiante natura delle Indie Occidentali. Io sarò più breve: ho trovato un nuovo amore.
June 10, 2017
I tried... but I really didn't connect with these poems at all.
August 24, 2012
One star is what I'd have given myself as a reader of White Egrets first time around; fortunately on this second outing I find myself on firmer footing. I don't think I've come across another book to which the word "painterly" so aptly applies: "Light frames itself in little squares..." "I come out of my studio for blue air that has no edges..." "Days when I painted in the furnace of noon..." "the failed canvases turn their shamed faces to the wall like sins..." Among the painters namechecked are Van Gogh, Vermeer, Frans Hals, Rubens, Rembrandt, Bacon, and Constable. Anyone who has ever painted, I imagine, will turn to this collection time after time; it is, in fact, the ideal studio companion, and my own beautiful hardback copy is probably destined to suffer coloured thumbprints and turpentine smears. Given that paintings must surely rank among the most alluring physical objects in our world, it also seems fitting that here Walcott celebrates the relationship between the book as artefact and the eye, with behind it all the mysteriousness of the human mind: "The page of the lawn and this open page are the same, an egret astonishes the page..." "Streets growing closer like print you can now read..." "This prose has the gait of a mule urged up a mountain road..." "A dingy writes lines made by the scanty metre of its oar strokes..." "A cloud slowly covers the page and it goes white again and the book comes to a close..." It helps that the book in question, in this age of downloads and Kindles, has been so sumptuously produced by Faber, an object that it's a pleasure to hold in your hands.
Read
November 10, 2018The white egrets of the title appear in more than just one poem. They are scattered liberally throughout the book, along with herons, ibises, crows, and other birds. Along with white-capped waves, and white-sailed boats. Along with numerous named flowers and trees. In fact, one of the first things I noticed about Derek Walcott as author of these poems, is that he is excellent at painting a vivid visual picture.
The second thing I noticed is that he travels a lot. He writes about his Caribbean home, as well as Italy and Spain and various places in the United States.
The third thing I noticed is that he is old. He has diabetes, poor vision, a few extra pounds, white hair. He mulls that he is too old for the women he finds attractive. He mourns the passing of dear friends.
These sonnet-like chunky stanzas with longish lines (they are not sonnets, for I counted the lines and they were irregular, some with sixteen lines, some with nineteen) walk along with a dignified rhythm, and with subtle rhymes that I usually didn't notice. I found nothing to fault here. The author is learned, thoughtful, skilled with words, and sometimes has a wry, self-deprecating humor. But I also found the poems not particularly memorable. There weren't any poems I wanted to send to my friends, or any lines I wanted to write down to remember.
Except for this one, the last line of one of the poems: "I treated all of them badly, my three wives." That stopped me. Boom, he dropped it there, so heavy with untold stories and emotions, barely alluded to, almost an aside. The next stanza goes on to describe a street scene. I think that one line is possibly the best in the whole book.
The second thing I noticed is that he travels a lot. He writes about his Caribbean home, as well as Italy and Spain and various places in the United States.
The third thing I noticed is that he is old. He has diabetes, poor vision, a few extra pounds, white hair. He mulls that he is too old for the women he finds attractive. He mourns the passing of dear friends.
These sonnet-like chunky stanzas with longish lines (they are not sonnets, for I counted the lines and they were irregular, some with sixteen lines, some with nineteen) walk along with a dignified rhythm, and with subtle rhymes that I usually didn't notice. I found nothing to fault here. The author is learned, thoughtful, skilled with words, and sometimes has a wry, self-deprecating humor. But I also found the poems not particularly memorable. There weren't any poems I wanted to send to my friends, or any lines I wanted to write down to remember.
Except for this one, the last line of one of the poems: "I treated all of them badly, my three wives." That stopped me. Boom, he dropped it there, so heavy with untold stories and emotions, barely alluded to, almost an aside. The next stanza goes on to describe a street scene. I think that one line is possibly the best in the whole book.
March 22, 2015
I read this as part of my Reading Round the World Challenge. With countries with less than a million people living there I put these books into my "get through the other ones first" pile but I made an exception for Derek Walcott as he has developed an international reputation and following and thought there was a decent chance I would like his poetry.
Poetry is very much a question of taste. Were I studying Walcott there is much I could talk about in terms of his skills and technique. There is much that could be gained from studying and unpicking his poems. However as a casual reader I rarely take the time and energy to study a given poem to that degree unless something about it intrigues me and nothing in this collection really grabbed me.
In part he is probably not my type of poet, in part this collection is in many ways about being old and getting old (not much interest to me), in part there were many people and events referenced and I just didnt know anything about them so much of the added elements of the poems were lost on me.
Probably I would have enjoyed his earlier volumes more but this was the book of his available at the local library.
Poetry is very much a question of taste. Were I studying Walcott there is much I could talk about in terms of his skills and technique. There is much that could be gained from studying and unpicking his poems. However as a casual reader I rarely take the time and energy to study a given poem to that degree unless something about it intrigues me and nothing in this collection really grabbed me.
In part he is probably not my type of poet, in part this collection is in many ways about being old and getting old (not much interest to me), in part there were many people and events referenced and I just didnt know anything about them so much of the added elements of the poems were lost on me.
Probably I would have enjoyed his earlier volumes more but this was the book of his available at the local library.
April 7, 2022
Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature back in 1993, and this little book was published in 2010: what does one do with oneself seventeen years after winning a Nobel Prize? Well, if one happens to be Derek Walcott, one treats life itself like one of those pitching machines and launches emotional situation after situation in clean short bursts out into the night sky like its a home run derby of your own devising. (He's still got power and technique, is what I'm saying, come on.)
Part VII of the White Egrets sequence is the best poem I've ever read on the act of writing itself. That by itself is worth the whole price of admission. And then there are sonorous philosophical maybe-truths that needle into you hard, like a Stevens-Frost mixed drink, things like, "The perpetual ideal is astonishment," or "love and the suffering that love likes": these are poems to make you sadder and wiser.
Omeros-- Walcott's Nobel-garnering epic-- has jumped about two hundred places on my to-do list. This is a great little book. Do yourself a favor and leisure your way through it someday soon.
Part VII of the White Egrets sequence is the best poem I've ever read on the act of writing itself. That by itself is worth the whole price of admission. And then there are sonorous philosophical maybe-truths that needle into you hard, like a Stevens-Frost mixed drink, things like, "The perpetual ideal is astonishment," or "love and the suffering that love likes": these are poems to make you sadder and wiser.
Omeros-- Walcott's Nobel-garnering epic-- has jumped about two hundred places on my to-do list. This is a great little book. Do yourself a favor and leisure your way through it someday soon.
January 2, 2018
White Egrets is a book of poetry by Derek Walcott. In this collection of poems, Walcott explores and reflects upon life in a series of stanzas cloaked in metaphor. Walcott carefully chooses each word with surgical precision. The great white egret is a member of the heron family, closely related to storks and pelicans. Males and females look identical and it is not a vocal bird, only giving a low hoarse croak when disturbed which is particularly interesting since Walcott gives the Egret an entire book’s worth of voice. Throughout the book, Walcott (2010) uses animals and nature to symbolize life. I interpreted this poem to be a reflection of Walcott’s own life, comparing and contrasting nature vs. the delicateness of human life.
September 24, 2017
The writing in these is lovely, but another reviewer described this volume as "whiny," and it certainly read like that at times. Old age, the dissipation of talent (or worry over such), and the loss of friends and muses are doubtless enough to make one whiny, but I didn't particularly enjoy reading poem after poem about it.
April 10, 2019
A short book of almost-sonnets. These poems are never 14 lines, but always close to 14. Mortality, regrets, unregrets, egrets, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean--these are all subjects of this slim volume. Reading Walcott always feels like getting an education without feeling like an idiot along the way.
May 26, 2015
Soul stirring poetry by Walcott...
January 29, 2022
The chessmen are as rigid on their chessboard
as those life-sized terra-cotta warriors whose vows
to their emperor with bridle, shield and sword
were sworn by a chorus that has lost its voice;
no echo in that astonishing excavation.
Each soldier gave an oath, each gave his word
to die for his emperor, his clan, his nation,
to become a chess piece, breathlessly erect
in shade or crossing sunlight, without hours -
from clay to clay and odourless strict.
If vows were visible they might see ours
as changeless chessmen in the changing light
on the lawn outside where bannered breakers toss
and the palms gust with music that is time's
above the chessmen's silence. Motion brings loss.
A sable blackbird twitters in the limes.
* * *
In the mute roar of autumn, in the shrill
treble of the aspens, the basso of the holm-oaks,
in the silvery wandering aria of the Schuylkill,
the poplars choiring with a quillion strokes,
find love for what is not your land, a blazing country
in eastern Pennsylvania with the DVD going
in the rented burgundy Jeep, in the inexhaustible bounty
of fall with the image of Eakins' gentleman rowing
in his slim skiff whenever the trees divide
to reveal a river's serene surprise, flowing
through snow-flecked birches where Indian hunters glide.
The country has caught fire form the single spark
of a prophesying preacher, its ember glowing,
its clouds are smoke in the onrushing dark
a holocaust crackles in this golden oven
in which tribes were consumed, a debt still owing,
while a white country spire insists on heaven.
* * *
I sent you, in Martinique, maître,
the unfolding letter of a sail, a letter
beyond the lines of blindingly white breakers,
of lace-laden surplices and congregational shale.
I did not send any letter, though it flailed on the wind,
your island is always in the haze of my mind
with the blown-about sea-birds
in their creole clatter of vowels, maître among makers,
whom the reef recites when the copper sea-almonds blaze,
beacons to distant Dakar, and the dolphin's acres.
as those life-sized terra-cotta warriors whose vows
to their emperor with bridle, shield and sword
were sworn by a chorus that has lost its voice;
no echo in that astonishing excavation.
Each soldier gave an oath, each gave his word
to die for his emperor, his clan, his nation,
to become a chess piece, breathlessly erect
in shade or crossing sunlight, without hours -
from clay to clay and odourless strict.
If vows were visible they might see ours
as changeless chessmen in the changing light
on the lawn outside where bannered breakers toss
and the palms gust with music that is time's
above the chessmen's silence. Motion brings loss.
A sable blackbird twitters in the limes.
- 1., pg. 3
* * *
In the mute roar of autumn, in the shrill
treble of the aspens, the basso of the holm-oaks,
in the silvery wandering aria of the Schuylkill,
the poplars choiring with a quillion strokes,
find love for what is not your land, a blazing country
in eastern Pennsylvania with the DVD going
in the rented burgundy Jeep, in the inexhaustible bounty
of fall with the image of Eakins' gentleman rowing
in his slim skiff whenever the trees divide
to reveal a river's serene surprise, flowing
through snow-flecked birches where Indian hunters glide.
The country has caught fire form the single spark
of a prophesying preacher, its ember glowing,
its clouds are smoke in the onrushing dark
a holocaust crackles in this golden oven
in which tribes were consumed, a debt still owing,
while a white country spire insists on heaven.
- 14. Pastoral, pg. 42
* * *
I sent you, in Martinique, maître,
the unfolding letter of a sail, a letter
beyond the lines of blindingly white breakers,
of lace-laden surplices and congregational shale.
I did not send any letter, though it flailed on the wind,
your island is always in the haze of my mind
with the blown-about sea-birds
in their creole clatter of vowels, maître among makers,
whom the reef recites when the copper sea-almonds blaze,
beacons to distant Dakar, and the dolphin's acres.
- 52. Elegy, for Aimé Césaire, pg. 84
Read
November 10, 2020Beautiful. An impressive description of the places he has visited.
Derek Walcott writes poetry well. His work is a visual documentary- stories on their own describing the significance of time. His love for poetry is comparable to a woman. And because he loves her he ought to let her go gently. The way he speaks of his island had me at awe. I in turn want to love mine just as much. Yet he is not biased as he goes into depth embracing and sharing what his eyes have seen in strange cities I wouldn't have known about in such a delicate fabrication. A song to remember forever. This celebration of life and language features the Caribbean and it is so deep that I don't think anyone could do a better job of creating these beautiful imagery that compels the reader to open their mind and follow along. He is the finest poet I have come across.
Derek Walcott writes poetry well. His work is a visual documentary- stories on their own describing the significance of time. His love for poetry is comparable to a woman. And because he loves her he ought to let her go gently. The way he speaks of his island had me at awe. I in turn want to love mine just as much. Yet he is not biased as he goes into depth embracing and sharing what his eyes have seen in strange cities I wouldn't have known about in such a delicate fabrication. A song to remember forever. This celebration of life and language features the Caribbean and it is so deep that I don't think anyone could do a better job of creating these beautiful imagery that compels the reader to open their mind and follow along. He is the finest poet I have come across.
July 9, 2017
Derek Walcott writes beautiful poetry. Most of the poems in this collection are beautiful, but I have two problems with this collection in particular. One is that there are two explicitly political poems near the end of the book, and I hate political poems, no matter what political view is expressed. There is nothing more antithetical to poetry than politics.
The other problem is that Walcott seems to fall back on some fairly cliche similes in some of the poems, like rivers running by like whispered prayers, etc. These instances are particularly jarring because most of Walcott's imagery and metaphor is alarmingly unique and lovely. Neither of these problems should dissuade anyone from reading this volume—I just wasn't as moved by it as by other books by Walcott I've read.
The other problem is that Walcott seems to fall back on some fairly cliche similes in some of the poems, like rivers running by like whispered prayers, etc. These instances are particularly jarring because most of Walcott's imagery and metaphor is alarmingly unique and lovely. Neither of these problems should dissuade anyone from reading this volume—I just wasn't as moved by it as by other books by Walcott I've read.
November 10, 2020
Derek Walcott writes poetry well. His work is a visual documentary- stories on their own describing the significance of time. His love for poetry is comparable to a woman. And because he loves her he ought to let her go gently. The way he speaks of his island had me at awe. I in turn want to love mine just as much. Yet he is not biased as he goes into depth embracing and sharing what his eyes have seen in strange cities I wouldn't have known about in such a delicate fabrication. A song to remember forever. This celebration of life and language features the Caribbean and it is so deep that I don't think anyone could do a better job of creating these beautiful imagery that compels the reader to open their mind and follow along. He is the finest poet I have come across.
April 2, 2021
Beautiful.
This is my first time reading Derek Walcott and after reading White Egrets, I hope it won't be my last. Walcott has a very distinct, engaging, and lyrical voice. I love how he encapsulated aging and the natural world into this piece. It was an experience I really loved from beginning to end. I originally picked up this book for an Around the World reading challenge, because of Walcott's ties to St. Lucia and it's references in this work. While the imagery of St. Lucia in many of his poems was beautiful, I didn't realize just how many places Walcott would take us to in under 100 pages. Reading this collection felt like experiencing the world with Walcott through his eyes and I appreciated every minute of it.
This is my first time reading Derek Walcott and after reading White Egrets, I hope it won't be my last. Walcott has a very distinct, engaging, and lyrical voice. I love how he encapsulated aging and the natural world into this piece. It was an experience I really loved from beginning to end. I originally picked up this book for an Around the World reading challenge, because of Walcott's ties to St. Lucia and it's references in this work. While the imagery of St. Lucia in many of his poems was beautiful, I didn't realize just how many places Walcott would take us to in under 100 pages. Reading this collection felt like experiencing the world with Walcott through his eyes and I appreciated every minute of it.
July 7, 2018
It is far too early in the morning for me to come up with much in the way of coherent thoughts on this book.
What I will say is that it is a book packed with wonder. Walcott, whose work I hardly know (which is my fault entirely), writes with panache - and I'm using that word with all the weight that Gerard Depardieu gives it in Cyrano de Bergerac.
The poems are packed with life: human, animal and plant. Waves wash over them. We travel the world in this small collection too. It has an elegiac feel to it. A great poet remarking on his ageing and the passing of people around him.
To conclude a tired ramble. This is wonderful. Enjoy. I particularly enjoyed 'Sicilian Suite'.
What I will say is that it is a book packed with wonder. Walcott, whose work I hardly know (which is my fault entirely), writes with panache - and I'm using that word with all the weight that Gerard Depardieu gives it in Cyrano de Bergerac.
The poems are packed with life: human, animal and plant. Waves wash over them. We travel the world in this small collection too. It has an elegiac feel to it. A great poet remarking on his ageing and the passing of people around him.
To conclude a tired ramble. This is wonderful. Enjoy. I particularly enjoyed 'Sicilian Suite'.
June 19, 2021
So exceptionally beautiful. Imagery beyond compare. Distinct lyricism, as unmistakable as Glück: the waves crashing on the shore, all of the earth molding and molded to the crevices where things ultimately reside. Animals, air, rain, the ephemeral, the melancholy, the tension of human life—such sophisticated phrasing and punctuated purely by spiritual thought. I was in love with a tree that I saw ravaged by egrets. Their toxic fences and the intestine of their deceptively delicate brooding saw the tree turn around o a rotting cinder within two years. Through tears, I’m delighted to know they’re environmentally protected.
July 28, 2021
Walcott's poetic voice is achingly beautiful and, even though I don't enjoy the content of these poems nearly as much as I do the wonderful "Omeros", the sparkling feats he performs here with metaphor, language, and lyricism suffice to earn this collection four stars from me.
In "White Egrets", Walcott muses on old age, loss and regret in a sun-soaked sequence of poems that traverse the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, with the ocean a constant and insistent presence that laps at the edges of almost every page.
I'm now eager to read more of Walcott's work; I must pick up a copy of his "Selected Poems" soon.
In "White Egrets", Walcott muses on old age, loss and regret in a sun-soaked sequence of poems that traverse the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, with the ocean a constant and insistent presence that laps at the edges of almost every page.
I'm now eager to read more of Walcott's work; I must pick up a copy of his "Selected Poems" soon.
July 27, 2017
St Lucia
"That is the heart, coming home, trying to fasten on everything it moved from, how salty things only increase its thirst."
"Well, if we burnt, it was at least New York."
"Everybody in New York is in a sitcom."
"You've lost seven pounds, but what you've also lost is belief in heaven as dear friends die."
"Don't loiter in the neighborhood of friendship." The best of them will disappoint, will shut the door quietly, do not be amazed at your exclusion."
"That is the heart, coming home, trying to fasten on everything it moved from, how salty things only increase its thirst."
"Well, if we burnt, it was at least New York."
"Everybody in New York is in a sitcom."
"You've lost seven pounds, but what you've also lost is belief in heaven as dear friends die."
"Don't loiter in the neighborhood of friendship." The best of them will disappoint, will shut the door quietly, do not be amazed at your exclusion."
March 11, 2019
2.5 stars. I picked up this collection for my AtW challenge (St. Lucia). As an infrequent reader of poetry, I liked some of the Nobel Prize-winner's imagery, but I couldn't relate to most of these poems. I suspect I would find them more meaningful if I read them in the various locations described. Poems that did resonate with me are "Spanish Series," "In the Village," and "Forty Acres" (dedicated to Barack Obama).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews