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Collected Poems, 1948-1984
This remarkable collection, which won the 1986 "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize for Poetry, includes most of the poems from each of Derek Walcott's seven prior books of verse and all of his long autobiographical poem, "Another Life." The 1992 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Walcott has been producing--for several decades--a poetry with all the beauty, wisdom, directness, and narrative force of our classic myths and fairy tales, and in this hefty volume readers will find a full record of his important endeavor.
"Walcott's virutes as a poet are extraordinary," James Dickey wrote in "The New York Times Book Review." "He could turn his attention on anything at all and make it live with a reality beyond its own; through his fearless language it becomes not only its acquired life, but the real one, the one that lasts . . . Walcott is spontaneous, headlong, and inventive beyond the limits of most other poets now writing."
"Walcott's virutes as a poet are extraordinary," James Dickey wrote in "The New York Times Book Review." "He could turn his attention on anything at all and make it live with a reality beyond its own; through his fearless language it becomes not only its acquired life, but the real one, the one that lasts . . . Walcott is spontaneous, headlong, and inventive beyond the limits of most other poets now writing."
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
40 people are currently reading
2120 people want to read
About the author
Derek Walcott
181 books500 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 12, 2019
"If, in the light of things, you fade
real, yet wanly withdrawn
to our determined and appropriate
distance, like the moon left on
all night among the leaves, may
you invisibly delight this house;
O star, doubly compassionate, who came
too soon for twilight, too late
for dawn, may your pale flame
direct the worst in us
through chaos
with the passion of
plain day." - "Star"
I am probably not in the right focused-state for this review, but I'll give it ago. I've been wanting to read Derek Walcott's Omeros for awhile, but I managed to purchase this book first. It is interesting to read this poetry: one gets a sense of his evolution and his subject-matter. For me, while these poems are technically perfect some of them tended to be in style almost too rigidly neo-Victorian. It is amazing how his conservative verse contrasted with his very politically-leftist subject matter. Like if Alfred Tennyson was a socialist. I did like his early poems and his dialect poems, but I don't think I read this collection at the right time. If I revisit this book I'll give it a better read-through.
real, yet wanly withdrawn
to our determined and appropriate
distance, like the moon left on
all night among the leaves, may
you invisibly delight this house;
O star, doubly compassionate, who came
too soon for twilight, too late
for dawn, may your pale flame
direct the worst in us
through chaos
with the passion of
plain day." - "Star"
I am probably not in the right focused-state for this review, but I'll give it ago. I've been wanting to read Derek Walcott's Omeros for awhile, but I managed to purchase this book first. It is interesting to read this poetry: one gets a sense of his evolution and his subject-matter. For me, while these poems are technically perfect some of them tended to be in style almost too rigidly neo-Victorian. It is amazing how his conservative verse contrasted with his very politically-leftist subject matter. Like if Alfred Tennyson was a socialist. I did like his early poems and his dialect poems, but I don't think I read this collection at the right time. If I revisit this book I'll give it a better read-through.
November 25, 2013
Often I return to a poet or a collection and the importance of it has shifted somehow, I've left it behind. With Derek Walcott I'm always trying to catch up, the poems in this collection are lessons for life, (as unsexy as that might sound). He will always be relevant and revelatory.
Favourites:
Dark August
Sea Cranes
Love After Love
Chapter 15
Chapter 14 III
And all the poems from Midsummer
Favourites:
Dark August
Sea Cranes
Love After Love
Chapter 15
Chapter 14 III
And all the poems from Midsummer
October 24, 2013
Epic. I love how Walcott's poems are so vast and expansive. They bring in some kind of Homeric element, some reference to Greek tragedy via the Caribbean. You almost have to read them aloud in patois. A couple of examples. One short, one longer:
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Air
"There has been romance, but it has been the romance of
pirates and outlaws. The natural graces of life do not
show themselves under such conditions. There are no peo-
ple there in the true sense of the word, with a character
and purpose of their own."
--Froude, The Bow of Ulysses
The unheard, omnivorous
jaws of this rain forest
not merely devour all,
but allow nothing vain;
they never rest,
grinding their disavowal
of human pain.
Long, long before us,
those hot jaws like an oven
steaming, were open
to genocide; they devoured
two minor yellow races, and
half of a black;
in the word made flesh of God
all entered taht gross, un-
discriminating stomach;
the forest is unconverted,
because that shell-like noise
which roars like silence, or
ocean's surpliced choirs
entering its nave, to a censer
of swung mist, is not
the rustling of prayer
but nothing; milling air,
a faith, infested cannibal,
which eats gods, which devoured
the god-refusing Carib, petal
by golden petal, then forgot,
and the Arawak
who leaves not the lightest fern-trace
of his fossil to be cultured
by black rock,
but only the rusting cries
of a rainbird, like a hoarse
warrior summoning his race
from vaporous air
between this mountain ridge
and the vague sea
where the lost exodus
of corials sunk without trace--
there is too much nothing here.
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Air
"There has been romance, but it has been the romance of
pirates and outlaws. The natural graces of life do not
show themselves under such conditions. There are no peo-
ple there in the true sense of the word, with a character
and purpose of their own."
--Froude, The Bow of Ulysses
The unheard, omnivorous
jaws of this rain forest
not merely devour all,
but allow nothing vain;
they never rest,
grinding their disavowal
of human pain.
Long, long before us,
those hot jaws like an oven
steaming, were open
to genocide; they devoured
two minor yellow races, and
half of a black;
in the word made flesh of God
all entered taht gross, un-
discriminating stomach;
the forest is unconverted,
because that shell-like noise
which roars like silence, or
ocean's surpliced choirs
entering its nave, to a censer
of swung mist, is not
the rustling of prayer
but nothing; milling air,
a faith, infested cannibal,
which eats gods, which devoured
the god-refusing Carib, petal
by golden petal, then forgot,
and the Arawak
who leaves not the lightest fern-trace
of his fossil to be cultured
by black rock,
but only the rusting cries
of a rainbird, like a hoarse
warrior summoning his race
from vaporous air
between this mountain ridge
and the vague sea
where the lost exodus
of corials sunk without trace--
there is too much nothing here.
March 6, 2017
"El amor es una piedra que se asentó en el fondo del mar bajo el agua gris"
June 21, 2008
Walcott is a poet whose work will endure. Yes, this is post-colonial poetry but, more than that, it is poetry with a seriousness of purpose crafted by a man at the peak of his powers. He draws effortlessly on the classics but remains very much rooted in the land and language of the Caribbean. Heartily recommended.
March 23, 2017
I loved Derek Walcott's poetry more than the only theater piece that I read written by him, but this is not strange considering that I love poetry much more than theater. Concerning his poetry, I loved the short poems much more than his long lyrics divided in chapters and stanzas (?). First of all they were much more complicated, second they were not immediate. In the end I had also problem being Italian and not english mother-tongue, so I would love to reread this book in my language also.
Le poesie di Derek Walcott mi sono piaciute molto di piú della piece teatrale scritta da lui che avevo letto in precedenza, ma questo non é affatto strano considerato che solitamente la poesia mi piace molto piú del teatro. Inoltre in questo libro, le poesie brevi sono quelle che ho amato, specialmente rispetto alle liriche piú lunghe, divise in capitoli e stanze (?), che erano piú difficili e meno immediate. Per concludere anche la lingua non era semplice, quindi non mi dispiacerebbe rileggere questo stesso libro in italiano.
Le poesie di Derek Walcott mi sono piaciute molto di piú della piece teatrale scritta da lui che avevo letto in precedenza, ma questo non é affatto strano considerato che solitamente la poesia mi piace molto piú del teatro. Inoltre in questo libro, le poesie brevi sono quelle che ho amato, specialmente rispetto alle liriche piú lunghe, divise in capitoli e stanze (?), che erano piú difficili e meno immediate. Per concludere anche la lingua non era semplice, quindi non mi dispiacerebbe rileggere questo stesso libro in italiano.
August 23, 2025
A stunning collection of poetry. Most poems in this volume deal with topics like the poet's Caribbean identity, the destructive effects of colonialism, and other political topics such as war. The poems are not coy with their anti-colonial messages. It's difficult for poems to be this overtly political and yet not become unsubtle and preachy, but than never happens with Walcott. His poems are also deeply human, always with complicated and challenging language and imagery, deeply profound in their depth of feeling, always leaving reader deeply shaken. The crown jewel of the collection is "Another Life", an autobiographical masterpiece which rivals the achievements of T. S. Eliot.
July 2, 2010
I love this book because of Walcott's strict form employed to reveal his remembered Caribbean. He is patient in his poetry. He slowly unfolds landscapes and details from his native islands. For me it was like Walcott was lifting salt fish to my mouth, brushing beach-sand from my feet, or fanning the wind's sea-smell toward my nose. His image-driven approach to classical, formal content leaves one feeling enlightened in every sense.
September 13, 2011
A superb overview of a major talent. I have to get my hands on Omeros. Also I spent much of this August reading and thinking about 'Dark August', which became a sort of talisman during a very bleak time.
February 28, 2024
Walcott has to be one of the greatest 'place' poets of all time. To read Walcott is to not only visit but to briefly live the life of a St. Lucian, with all of the cultural and historic memory but at the same time embody the contradictions of Walcott's unsparing personal awareness. As a result his poetry carries a beautiful kind of sadness; the tone of the necessity of experiencing the death of beautiful and important things in order to continue living.
May 21, 2019
The Virgins
Far Cry from Africa
Force
Nights in the Garden of Port of Spain
The Whale, his Bulwark
A Country Club Romance
New World
Midsummer, Tobago
Far Cry from Africa
Force
Nights in the Garden of Port of Spain
The Whale, his Bulwark
A Country Club Romance
New World
Midsummer, Tobago
November 27, 2018
One of my favourite Caribbean poets. Read this many years ago and re-read most of them during the course of this year.
December 12, 2015
The poetry of Derek Walcott covers an expanse of topics that will always seem relevant to every day life. Post Colonial literature looks at the relationship of the issues of power, religion, culture as well as economics and politics and how they influence each other. Postcolonial literature often focuses on identity, may it be social identity, cultural identity, or national identity; this is what Walcott adopts in his poetry. Walcott shows his heritage of growing up in Saint Lucia throughout his work, often switching between a Caribbean regional language of Creole and English. He has a very diverse topic range in his poetry so there is something for everyone.
Derek Walcott covers many topics ranging from love, to religion, to home. Many of his poems are easily related to. For me Love after Love and The Fist really stuck with me, they depicted what was going on in my life at the time and helped me realize that everything was going to be alright and life would still continue. I feel that many people are able to make these kinds of connections with his writing, he covers such a broad range of topics there is something than everyone can relate to. His writing paints a picture, creating an image of what is going on in the poem you are reading, it sucks you and you become enveloped in the poem and the language.
“The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome, “
The imagery in this stanza of Love After Love really made an impact on me. Saying that you will be able to look yourself in the mirror again after your heart is broken. Your self-respect, and self-image is oftentimes altered when someone who you once loved is now gone, or you were in a relationship where you were put down and made to feel like nothing. But in time you will learn to love yourself again. When I first read this poem I had just gone through a rough breakup and it really put everything into perspective, it gave me encouragement that everything would be okay. It’s funny how you come across these things at the perfect time in your life, where it can really help you through tough times. This poem definitely helped me and I feel that many people will have the same reaction to it that I did.
The General and Liberal Education aspect of this course has really opened my eyes to new types of literature that I never would have looked at otherwise. I was reluctant to read some of the books that were assigned in this course because I thought that I would not find them interesting. But I was wrong; I would find myself getting lost in the novel and end up reading it cover to cover. All of the different cultural genres that we covered in this course gave me more of a cultural awareness of how life is different in other places in the world. We all have different struggles in life based on what geographical region that we are in. I now find myself looking for deeper meanings in the things that I am reading, looking for symbolism and underlying meanings of why the author might have said a certain thing. This literature has opened my eyes to think in the context of the society that the book is set in, that their values and ways of life are much different than our Westernized ways. Being exposed to this different genre of literature has given me a greater cultural awareness.
Derek Walcott covers many topics ranging from love, to religion, to home. Many of his poems are easily related to. For me Love after Love and The Fist really stuck with me, they depicted what was going on in my life at the time and helped me realize that everything was going to be alright and life would still continue. I feel that many people are able to make these kinds of connections with his writing, he covers such a broad range of topics there is something than everyone can relate to. His writing paints a picture, creating an image of what is going on in the poem you are reading, it sucks you and you become enveloped in the poem and the language.
“The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome, “
The imagery in this stanza of Love After Love really made an impact on me. Saying that you will be able to look yourself in the mirror again after your heart is broken. Your self-respect, and self-image is oftentimes altered when someone who you once loved is now gone, or you were in a relationship where you were put down and made to feel like nothing. But in time you will learn to love yourself again. When I first read this poem I had just gone through a rough breakup and it really put everything into perspective, it gave me encouragement that everything would be okay. It’s funny how you come across these things at the perfect time in your life, where it can really help you through tough times. This poem definitely helped me and I feel that many people will have the same reaction to it that I did.
The General and Liberal Education aspect of this course has really opened my eyes to new types of literature that I never would have looked at otherwise. I was reluctant to read some of the books that were assigned in this course because I thought that I would not find them interesting. But I was wrong; I would find myself getting lost in the novel and end up reading it cover to cover. All of the different cultural genres that we covered in this course gave me more of a cultural awareness of how life is different in other places in the world. We all have different struggles in life based on what geographical region that we are in. I now find myself looking for deeper meanings in the things that I am reading, looking for symbolism and underlying meanings of why the author might have said a certain thing. This literature has opened my eyes to think in the context of the society that the book is set in, that their values and ways of life are much different than our Westernized ways. Being exposed to this different genre of literature has given me a greater cultural awareness.
January 2, 2023
A powerful overview of the Walcott’s life work.
March 26, 2009
When I heard that President Obama (before he was President) was seen carrying around a volume of Walcott's poetry I put in my request at the library right away. I've renewed it so many times now that they won't let me have it anymore. It must go back today so that others may enjoy. I need purchase a copy for my own collection because I've become so attached.
In the beginning I struggled with Walcott. I was persistent and soon Walcott's world began to open for me. It is a sad and beautiful world. I can smell the sea air in his work and feel the grit of the sands. My favorite was "Oddjob, A Bull Terrier" - Anyone who has ever loved and lost a pet will feel this poem in their bones.
Other favorites:
Early Pompeian
The Light of the World
Another Life
Elsewhere
The Arkansas Testament.
Highly recommend.
In the beginning I struggled with Walcott. I was persistent and soon Walcott's world began to open for me. It is a sad and beautiful world. I can smell the sea air in his work and feel the grit of the sands. My favorite was "Oddjob, A Bull Terrier" - Anyone who has ever loved and lost a pet will feel this poem in their bones.
Other favorites:
Early Pompeian
The Light of the World
Another Life
Elsewhere
The Arkansas Testament.
Highly recommend.
May 26, 2012
I take forever to read Walcott's books (have read a few of the individual books sampled in this huge volume), because his writing is so painterly, so full of intense images and startling, new, fresh language (while still calling up both personal nostalgia and a sense of adventure/wonder) that I get lost in his work. Sometimes it can take me weeks to digest a single one of his poems. I don't want to miss a thing, and I savor his work, read it slowly, re-read it, try to learn from it. Absolute beautiful genius language that covers both the large and the small, the outer world and the inner one with equal grace, attention to detail, and honesty.
December 22, 2008
So no, I havn't read it all, and suspect I will always be reading it. I love Walcott's poetry and highly recommend people invest in his collected poems in order to have it all so to say, or at least the massive amount in these pages. As Walcott says in one of his more famous poems: "Either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation." Very few lines of erse speak so personally to me as those, and to top it off you can hear Walcott's Caribbean musicality and accent mercilessly flinging these words into the world as you read the poems in these pages.
December 21, 2007
It is an encouragement for Non-New Yorker's, Non-Parisians, and the Non-San Fran crowds. It is an encouragment to those outside of literary establishments to write, according to Walcott, "For no one had yet written of this landscape."
His detailed images are wonderful, especially in "Another Life", a narrative poem over 4,000 lines long.
His detailed images are wonderful, especially in "Another Life", a narrative poem over 4,000 lines long.
June 26, 2009
One of the best poetry books I have ever read. I'm not exaggerating: I really do think that Walcott is the best living poet in the English language by a long way. Reading Walcott has restored my faith that it is still possible to write great poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: there are still great poets out there and Derek Walcott is one of them.
March 14, 2014
I was not familiar with Derek Walcott so it was a pleasure to find this used book at Poweell"s book store on a recent trip.This is a substantial book of 510 pages but is an enjoyable book of poems to read and read again. Karen Jean Matsko Hood
November 24, 2014
Island vs. City (human isolation vs. human over-saturation)
Empire and race, imperial/slave past, America's quiet imperialism
Blessed and cursed with three languages: French Creole, English Creole, and English
YEATS ATTACK! - Prof. Cushman
Favorites: Coral, Sea Grapes
Empire and race, imperial/slave past, America's quiet imperialism
Blessed and cursed with three languages: French Creole, English Creole, and English
YEATS ATTACK! - Prof. Cushman
Favorites: Coral, Sea Grapes
November 2, 2007
I actually really like Derek Walcott but maybe reading this much of his poetry was just too much for me. Kind of got tired of it.
October 28, 2014
Some of the most profound poetry I've ever heard come from this man and this collection of poetry; I still think of these poems all the time!
March 5, 2009
Gorgeous and thoughtful.
February 11, 2009
There's a photo of President Obama walking out of 57th St. Books in Chicago, just a month before the election, with a new copy of this book under his arm. Sigh....
October 5, 2009
Dense and luminous.
January 19, 2010
These poems were romantic, dark, full of nature, and called up visions of distant shores. Anyone who wants to expand their horizons with poetry MUST read this!
Want to read
November 27, 2011Why, why do I have this enormous Derek Walcott book? The answer is probably college.
November 5, 2013
does anyone do the long poem like walcott? he articulates the in-between in amazing, singing ways.
December 13, 2014
4.5/5
Read for school. Wow this exceeded my expectations. Review to come.
Read for school. Wow this exceeded my expectations. Review to come.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews