White Egrets

Didn't do much for me.

This poetry book is full of wonderful poems.Initially they are not easy because one looks for deep meaning. However these are a old man’s poems that paint in words pictures of his past.These are poems that need to be read aloud.The language Walcott uses to craft his poetry lifts you out of drab England and gives you a view of a different , very beautiful world.

Some beautiful poems by a master craftsman that evoke both the natural world of the Caribbean and the fragility of life, whether human or not. Walcott has an easy rhythm and a facility with images, raising plants and birds to the level of universal symbol.The poems of travel in Europe register new experiences and a different pace of life.This was a book well worth buying.

A haunting supreme collection by a poet at the end of his life. Wonderfully repeated images.

I like Derek Walcott's poetry; such a strong sense of what ties us to the physical world we emerge in and the human community that brings us into being

Bought for my sister as a Christmas present. She really enjoyed this book. It arrived in good time and was well packed.

One of Walcott's best books.

This is a late masterpiece from a Nobel prize winning poet. It is superb from the first poem to the last. The themes are personal and universal. The poet is ageing and yet still feels a younger man in heart and loins. Walcott deals with this familiar territory of old age with honesty, poignancy and brilliant imagery. The poetry is rhymed throughout but with such delicacy and fluency that you will first read the book through without noticing. What will astound you is the stunning detail of landscape both external and internal. The book only grows on second and third reading and so on. Walcott is a master at weaving together the living fabric of his observation and thoughts. Included are wonderful descriptions of his trips abroad to Italy and Spain as well as the beloved domestic vistas of the Caribbean. He pays homage to various friends, alive and dead, and scores off an enemy who has despised his homeland. There are pages of reckoning with the British Empire and other political legacies, but mainly a reckoning with himself. This is a great work and there is room for remorse as well as defiance. It was wisely chosen as the Poetry Book Society Choice and won the T.S. Eliot Prize. In my opinion it is a far better book than Heaney's late work Human Chain which won the Forward and I am sure history will agree with me.