The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory: The Nobel Lecture

Almost 40 years ago my friend and mentor, Count Taylor, told me about Derek Walcott (poet, writer, watercolorist) but I'd not read Walcott until just now...a serious mistake. THE ANTILLES: FRAGMENTS OF EPIC MEMORY, is just a small book but to read it is to step into another universe. Walcott applies layer upon layer of translucent watercolor pigment to an undulating and ever changing canvas...all to the purpose of separating the reader from her preconceptions. Read this and you will never look at a cruise ship parked in a Caribbean harbor in the same way again.5/24/00

This book may seem to be a bit slow at first, but as you get into it further, Walcott's words really start to affect you. His sense of awareness of American perceptions of the Caribbean are dead on, and he exposes them for what they are. Most importantly, he address poetry in general, relating the poetry he writes to the poetry he sees around him. It is in many ways a fierce defense of the beauty and timelessness of both poetry, and the Caribbean. In just these short pages I found more food for thought and more things that have gotten me thinking than in many novels or other works I have read recently. Definitely worth it!