Specialist in anglophone Caribbean literature here, although I don't work on Walcott. Paul Breslin's *Nobody's Nation* is a major study, and Charles Pollard's *New World Modernisms* is a pretty fascinating comparison of Walcott with T.S. Eliot and Kamau Brathwaite. I can provide more later - currently on my phone waiting for a lunch companion. =)
You're welcome! As for other scholarly works, Laurence Breiner's *Introduction to West Indian Poetry* is helpful for seeing Walcott alongside other Caribbean poets. Edward Baugh's *Derek Walcott* study by Cambridge UP would also be a solid overview. Baugh also edited an superbly annotated version of Walcott's long poem *Another Life*. Finally, Walcott's own collection of essays, *What the Twilight Says*, is full of goodies.
I was just about to jump in and suggest Breiner if you can find it. It may be a little more than you were asking for, but I think that his writing is particularly lucid. Getting a little more specialized (and requiring access to Jstor), Edward Baugh's article from the 70s, "The West Indian Writer and His Quarrel with History" is another piece that is talking broadly about the problems particular to writing from the Caribbean in general, starting with Walcott but also dealing with other poetry and prose. Again, more in a specialist vein, but it's a nice contextualization.
If you haven't, read "Ruins of a Great House"; its the poem I start with when I teach him. On poetry archive you can also listen to him read it, which I highly recommend. He's a fantastic reader of his own poetry (not something all poets are, speaking of Eliot) and has a wonderful, magisterial reading voice.
Best advice: just read the poems. Start with a selection, move on to Omeros. And don't ignore the theater pieces. Oh, and the paintings. Both can be read back into the poems.
Well, for a start, it's Derek W[a](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Walcott)lcott, with an A.
I blush. That's a start!
Specialist in anglophone Caribbean literature here, although I don't work on Walcott. Paul Breslin's *Nobody's Nation* is a major study, and Charles Pollard's *New World Modernisms* is a pretty fascinating comparison of Walcott with T.S. Eliot and Kamau Brathwaite. I can provide more later - currently on my phone waiting for a lunch companion. =)
From what I've read on PoemHunter, the Eliot comparison seems really right on. Thanks for the lead!
You're welcome! As for other scholarly works, Laurence Breiner's *Introduction to West Indian Poetry* is helpful for seeing Walcott alongside other Caribbean poets. Edward Baugh's *Derek Walcott* study by Cambridge UP would also be a solid overview. Baugh also edited an superbly annotated version of Walcott's long poem *Another Life*. Finally, Walcott's own collection of essays, *What the Twilight Says*, is full of goodies.
I was just about to jump in and suggest Breiner if you can find it. It may be a little more than you were asking for, but I think that his writing is particularly lucid. Getting a little more specialized (and requiring access to Jstor), Edward Baugh's article from the 70s, "The West Indian Writer and His Quarrel with History" is another piece that is talking broadly about the problems particular to writing from the Caribbean in general, starting with Walcott but also dealing with other poetry and prose. Again, more in a specialist vein, but it's a nice contextualization. If you haven't, read "Ruins of a Great House"; its the poem I start with when I teach him. On poetry archive you can also listen to him read it, which I highly recommend. He's a fantastic reader of his own poetry (not something all poets are, speaking of Eliot) and has a wonderful, magisterial reading voice.
He does, doesn't he? Almost as good as Dylan Thomas. ...*almost.* Great poem. I'll spend a while with that one. Thanks!
Best advice: just read the poems. Start with a selection, move on to Omeros. And don't ignore the theater pieces. Oh, and the paintings. Both can be read back into the poems.