Selected Poems [Paperback]

Derek Walcott (Author), Edward Baugh (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0374531110 | ISBN-13: 978-0374531119 | Edition: First Edition

Drawing from every stage of the Nobel laureate's career, Derek Walcott's Selected Poems brings together famous pieces from his early volumes, including "A Far Cry from Africa" and "A City's Death by Fire," with passages from the celebrated Omeros and selections from his latest major works, which extend his contributions to reenergizing the contemporary long poem. Here we find all of Walcott's essential themes, from grappling with the Caribbean's colonial legacy to his conflicted love of home and of Western literary tradition; from the wisdom-making pain of time and mortality to the strange wonder of love, the natural world, and what it means to be human. We see his lifelong labor at poetic crafts, his broadening of the possibilities of rhyme and meter, stanza forms, language, and metaphor. Edited and with an introduction by the Jamaican poet and critic Edward Baugh, this volume is a perfect representation of Walcott's breadth of work, spanning almost half a century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This career-spannning retrospective, culled from nearly 50 years of work, will go a long way toward reminding readers of the breadth and depth of Nobel laureate Walcott's achievement. Though he is perhaps best known for his modern epic, Omeros, which tells a Homeric tale set in St. Lucia, Walcott is a fine lyric poet as well, writing in traditional forms and meters as well as in powerful free verse. Alongside the epic tone that he brought into modern verse—"I sing of Achille, Afolabe's son,/ who never ascended in an elevator"—is lustful writing about a woman humming Bob Marley on a bus, a casual description of being mugged in Greenwich Village or a painter's-eye view of a fish. The political Walcott is also here; observing a crowd listening to a politician, he writes, "Who will name this silence/ respect? Those forced, hoarse hosannas/ awe?" The lyric Walcott is well represented, but the long poems—which are necessarily excerpted—prove more problematic. At best, the editor can hope that readers, hooked by one of these narrative poems, will be compelled to seek out the complete version. Nonetheless, this book represents a milestone in the career of a major writer. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"The magnitude of Walcott's achievement . . . is on lavish display in his updated Selected Poems, which spans a half-century of his protean output and highlights the formal prowess of the progressively ambitious work he's produced over the last twenty years . . . confirming the incantatory powers of an oracle the likes of which the New World hasn't seen since Prospero drowned his book." --David Barber, The Boston Globe

 

"Selected Poems allows us the rare pleasure of tracing a long career, a full life . . . Timeless in [its] magic and cumulative power . . . Luminous [and] engaging." --Richard Wakefield, The Seattle Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (December 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374531110
• ISBN-13: 978-0374531119
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Caribbean

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, January 3, 2009

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Selected Poems (Hardcover)

This really is a wonderful anthology. Baugh is to be congratulated for his selection of Walcott poems. What is most impressive about this book is the remarkable consistency of superb and characteristic poetry from the beginnings of Walcott's career to more recent work. The themes of exile, Walcott's ambivalent relationship with the European canon, and the nature of colonialism run throughout the work. Much of this work is autobiographical, presenting Walcott's remarkable ability to translate personal experience into beautiful language and universal themes.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good gift, November 7, 2011

By 

Bredman - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

I bought this book for my girlfriend, who is an English major. She loves this author and book, so I recommend it for similar tastes.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Journey to St. Lucia, August 11, 2011

By 

SF Raven - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Hardcover)

My Dad earns trips with his business and this summer we got to go to the beautiful island of St. Lucia. I love to go to new countries and learn about their history, culture, and people. I love to read and I am also a writer of everything from fiction to poetry. So imagine my joy when I discovered that St. Lucia had their very own Nobel award winning poet by the name of Derek Walcot! I was determined to bring home a copy of his work. However, before I was able to go out and get a book of his work, I got terribly sick and stayed that way until it was time to leave. So I got on Amazon the day before we left to see which Derek Walcot books I could order when I got home. They all went on my wish list and that was that. Until I was looking in the shops at the airport and found Selected Poems by Derek Walcot! I decided for sentimental reasons, even though it was cheaper on Amazon, I had to buy at least one of his books actually on St. Lucian soil. So this is my little story of why I took this book off my wish list and I hope you enjoy it. And I am simply mad about Derek Walcot!